Most, if not all sales methodologies talk about getting to the decision makers. It’s a good thing to do, but not necessarily wholly the right thing. In simple psychological terms it is far easier to stop a deal happening then make a deal happen. If you are only covering the decision makers then you may be losing out.

So, for all your must win deals, get the sales reps to develop relationship maps showing all the people who can stop a deal from happening for each of their deals. For example the CEO and CFO may not be making the decision for a certain purchase, but they sure can stop it from happening. Equally, you may find people lower in the organisation that can stop a deal from happening, for example, a technical expert. These people can’t make a deal happen, but they can sure stop it!

Action… make sure you show all the stoppers on the relationship map.

Now for each of the stoppers show how well you know them and / or how they can be influenced. If you have no influence over them, then the deal is at risk. I’m not saying you can’t win it, just that you are at risk because you don’t know how they are thinking. This is all part of qualification and qualification is about managing risk.

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