Change from Bow Ties to Diamonds
Guest Post - Great content from Tania Armstrong of state 3.
With the development of many sales / business development strategies, a couple of things have been consistently reliable:
People buy People, then they buy the services / product
Organisations consist of a bunch of People
You can’t grow business by talking to just one person…
One of my, possibly mad business mentors talked about the ‘bow tie to diamond effect’ and how important it was to growing solid business relationships and reducing account risk. A bow tie is where each organisation – the client and vendor, have one main contact between them (check the diagram below).
All discussions, demos, commercials and sales tend to be channelled through these two folks. From both perspectives this is a risky approach. Not only is there zero visibility of discussions (not ideal for good governance), but it increases risk should this relationship finish. Having your best client contact leave to take a new role in Bolivia(?) can be the kiss of death for long term relationship.
Similarly, no client likes it when their favourite Relationship Manager is replaced by a newbie. In the words of one of my clients when finding I was leaving my role – ‘oh no, I’ll have to break another vendor in’. I get it, the history between businesses is hard to pass on in mint condition and no one likes having to repeat the highs and lows of the last three years to yet another new sales person, so they understand what is going on.
The sustainable alternative is the diamond.
By flipping the triangles from bow tie (points facing in) to a diamond (points facing out) – the person in charge of the overall business relationships from each side can get different people throughout the organisation to mingle and strengthen the overall business commitment from both sides.
Ideally, the Relationship Manager (or similar) takes point (ha – see what I did there) to encourage this – using client calls, email, com calls to ensure people from other areas of their own business have skin in the game. From the c-suite down we work with our opposite numbers to talk, network, help, enable, add value and develop relationships.
And the upside?
Well when your favourite client disappears to Bolivia, the strong relationships elsewhere in the business will buy the relationship until a replacement is found. If the wider business like you then you and what you are selling, then the risk of losing the business along with your key relationship reduces.
Tania is a specialist in Sales & Business Development, Business Intelligence and Data Solutions with a special interest in Network Strategy. She has worked extensively with corporate and large businesses in Australia, UK and New Zealand and is based in Christchurch, New Zealand.