Tag: relationships

Save your tears for Sunday night and the Hallmark Channel. They’re no good here.

I killed your deal. Deal with it. It’s true. Simple truth. And you never saw it coming.

Who am I?

I don’t show up on an organizational chart.

I never hit payroll.

I rarely pay attention to corporate dress codes.  

I often come in and out like the breeze on a spring day.

I walk the halls with complete freedom.

You don’t know me, but you may have seen me. I wield tremendous power. So much so that a 3 minute conversation between your Economic Buyer and me killed your deal. Unceremoniously. Emotionless. Still dead. To quote Sean Connery, ‘As dead as Julius Caesar’.

Who am I?

I am the Trusted Advisor to your prospect’s Economic Buyer. Maybe a consultant. Maybe an advisory firm. Maybe a Board member. Maybe a friend.

If I’m not on payroll, how can I have so much power? Simple:

• I have a long history of trust and success with the Economic Buyer on your deal. (Did you ever meet with the EB?)
• I give advice that is impartial, experienced-based because I’m not connected to the emotions of the deal.  
• I’ll give objective advice even if it HURTS me and my position because I care about my client’s success above my own. (I happen to know that karma always pays me back richly).

At Span the Chasm, we review lots of deals for our clients. Wins. Losses. Always learning. Recently, there has been a rush on deals lost with no real traceable reason. When we do more digging, guess what we find in these lost deals? Yep…

Death by the Trusted Advisor.

I’ve been in the role of Trusted Advisor. I take it very seriously.

Once a client asked me to have breakfast with a candidate for a leadership position. The candidate thought they were meeting with me to get ‘a perspective they could learn from’, mostly ‘filling the calendar’ before the ‘real’ interviews began. The candidate didn’t take our conversation or my questions very seriously. Meanwhile, I got to really know what drove this person, how they viewed serving others and if they would be a good match for my client. I certainly learned a lot. A LOT. The formal interviews began at 9:00. By 9:30, they were shown the door. Thank you for your time. Done. Over. Dead.

I got a very introspective note from the candidate later, and they acknowledged they didn’t understand what happened or the role I played.

ALL our conversations related to executive connections, even casual ones, have the impact and power to change outcomes. Make sure YOUR conversations create a positive outcome. #LearningMoments

How can you avoid this death? Bad news, it isn’t always avoidable. But there are a few steps you can take. The basics:

• Make sure you meet with the EB. If you haven’t, many EBs look for a perspective that is NOT represented by the Champion/Mobilizer for your deal.
• Ask them who they go to for advice and ask for permission to share with them.
• Ask your Champion/Mobilizer who the EB looks to. If they don’t know…
• Look for strategic relationships on websites.

Money shot: The BEST way to beat this is to BE the Trusted Advisor.

Yep. Another potential ‘person of influence’ in your sales process. They’re not always there but if you don’t ask, you will never know. You will be left with ‘thinking, believing and assuming’. None of these will help in your hour of reckoning.

#BeGreat!