Influence Mapping - How to Sell to Corporates
We have all worked in large organisations and the larger they are, the more a knowledge of the internal politics and unofficial communications systems is of value in surviving and making progress.
For people outside the organisation who are trying to get things done within the organisation, the situation is twice as bad because they not only have to figure out the official hierarchy and communication channels, but also the unofficial ones.
Most good sales people develop an instinct for how to learn the politics of a client organisation, but once they get beyond a certain size it is very difficult to be properly effective unless you practically live in the client organisation and this is particularly so if your interaction with the client needs to be of a complex or widespread nature.In the 1960s IBM came up against this problem in a big way in trying to sell their large computer systems into large organisations, where the supply of a new system fundamentally affected dozens of sectors of both the official and unofficial decision making structures.
This is where Influence Mapping was born.
Multi level contact occurs quite naturally between two large organisations that do business together, but IBM was the first to see the value of managing and co-ordinating this interaction rather than just letting it happen and of doing a forensic job of mapping how all the interactions and influences worked. In particular they became masters at managing the interface between the techies, who understood the product and the management who did not, but had the decision making responsibility.
The legend that "You never get fired for buying IBM" was one of the bits of marketing genius that came out of this and successfully kept other suppliers with better, more innovative and cheaper products out of their market for a long time. Influence mapping is about mapping out the personnel terrain, understanding its dynamics and most importantly, identifying the key "opinion formers" and planting the seeds with them that will create the image of your supplying organisation that is required. Whether we have the time, patience and dedication to do this in our relationship with any other mega client – and whether we can make it worth while is a matter for debate.
We have all worked in large organisations and the larger they are, the more a knowledge of the internal politics and unofficial communications systems is of value in surviving and making progress.
For people outside the organisation who are trying to get things done within the organisation, the situation is twice as bad because they not only have to figure out the official hierarchy and communication channels, but also the unofficial ones.
Most good sales people develop an instinct for how to learn the politics of a client organisation, but once they get beyond a certain size it is very difficult to be properly effective unless you practically live in the client organisation and this is particularly so if your interaction with the client needs to be of a complex or widespread nature.In the 1960s IBM came up against this problem in a big way in trying to sell their large computer systems into large organisations, where the supply of a new system fundamentally affected dozens of sectors of both the official and unofficial decision making structures.
This is where Influence Mapping was born.
Multi level contact occurs quite naturally between two large organisations that do business together, but IBM was the first to see the value of managing and co-ordinating this interaction rather than just letting it happen and of doing a forensic job of mapping how all the interactions and influences worked. In particular they became masters at managing the interface between the techies, who understood the product and the management who did not, but had the decision making responsibility.
The legend that "You never get fired for buying IBM" was one of the bits of marketing genius that came out of this and successfully kept other suppliers with better, more innovative and cheaper products out of their market for a long time. Influence mapping is about mapping out the personnel terrain, understanding its dynamics and most importantly, identifying the key "opinion formers" and planting the seeds with them that will create the image of your supplying organisation that is required. Whether we have the time, patience and dedication to do this in our relationship with any other mega client – and whether we can make it worth while is a matter for debate.
posted by zzzzzzzzzzz at
9:23 PM
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