Selling in the Post-GFC world: Intertwinedness

I had an interesting discussion the other day with Brad Collins, Head of Product & Sales Capability & SMSF Sales at AXA Australia, and the topic came up of “What is new in Sales in this post-GFC world?” Now, setting aside the possibility (probability?) that we are far from post-GFC, I think it is an interesting area for discussion, and one into which I’ve been doing a bit of research myself.

Brad believes that one of the key themes for a business-to-business salesperson to emerge from the GFC is that of Intertwinedness (I’ve used this word, he summarised the idea much more eloquently). Essentially he suggests that for businesses to be successful, they need to do a better job of moving away from just the impact of the product or service to actually dealing with the success of the corporate entity itself.

Intertwinedness means looking at the client’s entire business system, value chain, strategic goals and business drivers and thinking “How can we improve this?” It requires the ability to look beyond just our products and services that we can offer, and to think more effectively about the capabilities of the business as a whole. This simple mapping of key client needs to our capabilities can create conversations that are two and three steps away from the actual products we sell.

Even beyond that Sweet Spot, Brad suggests that selling organisations looking to intertwine themselves consider not just where our capabilities overlap with our clients’ needs, but where our needs overlap. He gave the example of an industry superfund approaching a rail operator with the business idea of pooling purchases from printers, in order to decrease costs of creating publications. Some of those publications may be shared, but the business benefits would go beyond that simple overlap.

Being intertwined means it is hard to uncouple the business systems - Brad used the analogy of a weed that is so intertwined in the roots of a plant that to remove the weed would kill the plant. Maybe aspiring to weed status isn’t inspiring, but it hits home. In the GFC this can be a powerful defence strategy. Interwinedness is, of course, just as powerful when used as an offensive strategy, something I’m sure I’ll touch on in a future posting.

I like the idea and my experience and research supports it. The challenge, of course, is to get the sales organisation to be able to think strategically and holistically about their account. I believe that this is a difficult task, but not an impossible one. To achieve it, an organisation needs to break it down into smaller tasks; one can’t expect a transactional salesforce to become a strategic trusted partner overnight.

A good starting point is the number and kind of contacts that a salesperson has within an organisation. If they are only dealing with one area, or one area plus procurement, then they are unlikely to be able to see beyond the simple product impacts. Drive them to have more connections and conversations with other functions, business units, etc, to at least have a sense of what those different stakeholders care about. Then start them thinking about how your product or service might help those other areas to succeed.

It is a slow process, but thinking outside the current buying area is a good first step towards intertwinedness. Be The Weed! J