September 9th, 2011
When a direct attack won’t work, a Power Base® Compete seller knows it’s smart to look for an indirect strategy. One inspiration to finding such a solution is the animal Holden admires most—the ever-clever fox.
Take a common problem in the animal kingdom: fleas. Most animals try a direct approach to flea removal. Needless to say, it doesn’t work. But foxes are strategic animals who know those pesky fleas have one weakness: they hate water. So the fox exploits that vulnerability through an indirect strategy. First the fox dangles a stick from its mouth and wades into the water. Then, it simply waits as the fleas gather on the end of the stick, discards the stick and walks away flea-free.
What the Fox Knows
This solution requires insight. That insight comes from a knowledge of the fleas and their weaknesses. In business, you need to know what matters to your customer. To know that, you need to know who matters in your customer’s organization—by identifying the Power Base® and its unofficial influence leader, the Fox. Time after time, the right message to make the sale is the one they care about. This is the insight that leads to the right action—the thought process we call “Insightful Direction.”
Why Most Sellers Get Bitten
Most sellers don’t conduct the due diligence to know their Power Base®. As a Holden alum, you know the result: sellers who don’t know the right people to sell to. Instead of directing their effort productively, they waste it selling to anyone with a pulse. And even if they happen to reach the right people, they don’t know the right message to push their buttons, because they don’t know the political landscape of the client. These sellers are like the dog that scratches itself all day long—lots of effort, but no lasting success.
The Power of Patience
There’s one other element that’s essential to the fox’s success against fleas: timing. Even the perfect strategy still wouldn’t work unless the fox had the patience to wait until exactly the right moment to drop the stick. If you know your client’s political landscape, you recognize when the Fox in your selling scenario heads to water. You know what they’re doing—performing an indirect strategy of their own, exploiting the vulnerability of those around them. And you know exactly the right moment to make your move.
Recognizing your Fox’s agenda
What is your Fox trying to indirectly accomplish? Hook that agenda. Find how you can provide a value-added service to the Fox to help them reach their goals. If you identify this, you can be the water and the stick—making the right move at the right time to help remove the obstacles from their path. When you find your Fox and recognize their motivations, you can tailor an indirect strategy of your own to deliver what your client really wants. It’s HOW you make yourself Compete sales ready, outsell your competition….and get the win.
