Are you selling i2i or o2o?

While the terms B2C and B2B are familiar to you, you might wonder what i2i and o2o stand for.

These terms add an interesting twist to the concept of B2B selling. The first term, i2i picks up on the fact that in a B2B environment people buy from people and not from organizations. The term i2i (individual to individual) expresses just this. An individual at the customer organization buys from an individual of the seller’s organization. This situation actually implies a relatively simple deal structure.

We consider a deal as complex when several people in the customer organization are involved in a purchase either in formal buying roles or informal influencer roles. When there are also several individuals at the seller’s organization involved, we describe these as an o2o configuration. The term o2o (organization to organization) stands then for an orchestrated group of individuals in the customer organization buys from an orchestrated group of individual of the seller’s organization.

o2o in action

A key part of the process is orchestration. By this we mean the people in the customer organization have and follow a buying process and their counterparts in the seller’s organization also have and follow a sales process. The two processes and teams come together by coupling the sales process used by the seller organization with the buying process used by the buyer organization.

Individuals in the organization

Within the o2o sale there are clearly individual people working and making decisions. Yet the buying and selling processes outlined above do not indicate which individual at the seller’s organization is to talk to which individual at the customer organization. In addition, the people involved may well change as the sale progresses. For example, at first there is a need to determine whether there is a mutual interest in pursuing a potential opportunity. As the deal moves ahead different individuals in both organization are called upon to continue coordinated dialogues in an attempt to move a deal forward towards a buying decision.

We are thus faced with two critical questions:

·         Which person / people from our side should we be sending out to talk to the customer’s organization?

·         Which person / people in the customer’s organization should we be trying to reach?

o2o = utopia?

The key of the answer to these questions is in Relationship Management and understanding the power structure within the customer’s organization. The insights we need concern things like formal and informal reporting lines, and influential players and their motivations. We also need a system that codifies existing personal relationships. Yet such a system can only be effective it there is a willingness within the seller’s organization to share contact data. For many seller organizations this is still utopia. Everybody considers the relationship as a personal ownership. A change management process is therefore needed which is usually federated by a relationship management charter defining rules of how shared information is to be exploited.

So, o2o selling can only be effective if we have a codified system to capture relationship intelligence and influence management, governed by a relationship management charter.  We then need to invest in tools which support o2o selling in an effective manner.

Christian Maurer

Vital Data Elements for Effective Relationship Management

When you ask Key Account Managers (KAMs) to show you the relationships they have in their account, they most likely will show you some form of organization chart. Sophisticated KAMs have annotated those graphs with additional information about the people involved. Usually showing this information is accompanied with the remark: “It is a bit out of date, but I just did not have the time to update it yet. Things are changing so fast in this organization”. A sustainable up-to-date view of your relations in a complex account starts with having a more granular view of the data elements you need to describe your relations allowing for more flexible faster updates.

The skeleton is the structure

Most organization charts, I have seen from KAMs, essentially describe hierarchical relationships between people. Yet, at the origin, organization charts describe hierarchical relations between job roles (and not people). As people tend to change roles faster than the structural organization of job roles changes, if you have not made a distinction between the person and the job role, obviously updating your organizational chart is going to take a bit of effort.

Furthermore the hierarchical organization chart is just one element which helps you to understand how your customer’s organization works. It is comparable with a human skeleton giving the body a structure. But a skeleton doesn’t usually move on its own (except in horror movies).

The muscles are the power

In real life, the body needs muscles to move.

The analogue in an organization is the power the person has in a certain role. We all know that this power is not necessarily dependant on the hierarchical position of the role. To understand how an organization works, you somehow have to add the power component to your chart describing your relations in your customer organization.  In a more sophisticated scenario, you would also find information about the motivations and the source of the power of the person filling a certain role.

The nervous system carries information

Muscles and skeleton are both necessary but not sufficient for a body to move. Muscles need to be triggered by nerves.

In organizations, the analogue to nerves is conduits of information. In theory, this information flow should follow the hierarchical connections. In reality, information flow is actually governed by informal connections between the people working together. However, knowing that a certain relationship exists is not enough. For effective influence management, the quality of this relation must be known. Firstly, it is important to determine if it is an amicable or adversarial relationship.  Secondly, you need to determine the degree of strength of the feelings.

The senses show you the outside world

As a KAM, you want to influence the customer organization to eventually select your offering for solving a particular problem. To use again the analogy of the human body, you need to stimulate the senses so the nerves in turn direct the muscles which then move the body into a certain direction.  Your ability to stimulate the senses of an organization depends on four things:

–      The quality of the relation you have with influential people in the customer organization

–      The attitude these influential people have towards your solution

–      Knowing how to deliver a message so it is heard

–      The roles people have in a buying center (additional to their hierarchical position)

With exception of the last element, these distinctions are often omitted and can lead to serious misinterpretations of a situation and thus derail a deal.

Conclusion

Effective systems for capturing relationship intelligence should thus distinguish as a minimum the following data elements:

–      Hierarchical relations between roles

–      People filling these roles

–      Informal power of the people in their roles

–      Informal connections between people (strength and quality)

–      Quality of your connection to influential people

–      Formal roles in a buying center differentiated by opportunity 

–      Attitude of the influential people towards your solution per opportunity

The ease with which you can present these elements in an up to date form obviously also depends on the choice of graphical representation.

For complex organizations, there is also a need for a tool that allows for easy updating and automatic drawing of the graphic representation.

But these are topics meriting future own blog posts. For now you have already a check list which will help you to understand whether you track the right data for your relationship intelligence to be useful for defining influence management strategies.

Christian Maurer