Client’s Corporate Culture and o2o selling

In the o2o selling situation, buying occurs when an orchestrated seller team is in a synchronized process with the buyer team. .Knowing about the buyer’s organization culture will help you to identify the working style of the buyer team you have to work with.



Four types of corporate cultures

These four types of corporate culture have proven relevant when trying to answer two basic questions:

-       How are decisions made in this company?

-       How do the people in this structure gain and build power?

In a bureaucratic culture, communication is tightly controlled and flows along hierarchical lines. Silos are an essential element of this culture. The power of any one individual depends strongly on his / her hierarchical position. The probability that the final decision is made by a single individual is relatively high.

In an entrepreneurial culture, speed is of an essence and short decision paths are a characteristic. Power comes from being an entrepreneur or from being an individual enjoying an entrepreneur’s trust. For this type of culture, there is also a high probability that the final decider is one individual because the entrepreneur or the trusted individual has the authority to make decisions. In fact, decision making will probably happen even faster than in the bureaucratic culture as there is a flatter hierarchy.

The consulting culture is composed of partnerships with high territorial and subject matter expertise. The members are highly autonomous. This kind of structure is a prototype of the individualistic culture. Here the source of power is influence. In its turn, influence comes from the individual’s competence and performance. The decision maker depends on the type of purchase. If I want to sell to one partner I can expect to have one individual as decision maker. When I want to sell to the firm as a whole, I am confronted with many individuals having major roles in the decision process. These organizations also have little experience in finding consensus. They only do this out of absolute necessity.

The collaborative culture is based on open communications. Power source is influence which is determined by performance. As in the consulting culture, influence matters more than hierarchy. However, decision making style is different. In the collaborative culture the decider wants to assure a consensus among all concerned irrespective of the hierarchy before taking a decision. The decider deliberately does not want to use his or her rank.  Decision making can be “democratic” by majority vote. “The decider” is then the role of a spokesperson for the team vis-à-vis the seller.

Consequences for relationship intelligence

Although the above cultures might often not appear in their pure form, being able to understand

the prevailing culture at the customer’s organization is the first act of relationship intelligence.

We must also consider that in large organizations separate specific cultures in part of the organization might coexist with a different overall corporate culture. In this case, the prevailing culture of the organizational unit involved or concerned by the decision is relevant.

The decision making process associated with one of the four culture types then determines the relationship network I need to understand in order to be able to effectively manage influence and decision making.

Consequences for influence management

For organizations with bureaucratic or entrepreneurial cultures, establishing a relation to the decision maker or at least somebody with direct influence to the decision maker might be sufficient to influence a buying decision in favor of my solution. Contacts with other individuals in the organization might be necessary for the purpose of understanding the subject and the type of argumentation I must choose to persuade the decision maker.

To get to a buying decision in organization where an individual or collaborative culture prevails, I need to establish relationship with all the people involved or considered in the decision making process. My added value as the seller is to help the organization to find the consensus in an organization with an individualistic culture or help build the consensus on behalf of the “spokesperson” in the case of a collaborative culture.

Conclusion

Success in complex deals with large organization undoubtedly requires the involvement of multiple people. This is the first step and will ensure that there is no single point of failure for the relationship between the seller and the buyer organization.

If in addition, you pay attention to the prevailing corporate culture this will help you to understand for what purpose you want to maintain and establish these multiple contacts.

What are your experiences about this topic? 

Christian Maurer

Don’t shoot the messenger! Or how to become a trusted advisor

The message and the messenger

People make decisions all the time: purchasing choices, reorganization decisions, recruitment, etc.  A large part of the choice is based on information received and / or understood.  And although relationships play a key role in influencing the decision makers, facts, figures, and statistics (lies, damned lies and statistics to quote probably Disraeli) are also crucial.  What is the connection between the information carried and the messenger?

Informed decisions

Obviously information is shared and discussed during a complex decision making process.  Sales teams prepare sales messages, kits, demonstrations, etc.  The potential client holds internal meetings, they look at the literature and compare solutions, they meet the sales force.  There may be a pilot study, the results of which are shared and analyzed.  There are probably some more internal meetings, during which the outcome of the pilot study is discussed: ROI, adoption rate, customer satisfaction, etc.

And yet, sometimes someone out of the blue stops the whole process and the whole thing is dropped.  This someone may or may not have had access to the information during the evaluation period.

Money makes the world go round

Holding the purse strings gives you the power to act, decide, veto, choose, etc.  You can step in at the last minute and decide to call the whole thing off.  But why would you call something off?  Your team has been shifting through and sorting information, facts, statistics, and comparisons. 

But oftentimes, decisions are cancelled or ignored not because of the quality of the information itself, but because there is a lack of faith in either the information or in the decision makers themselves.

Information and person: the powerful combination

Undeniable facts and trustworthy people are a powerful combination.  Putting the two together creates a very strong source of influence, one that will be very difficult to ignore.

The trustworthy people in my network are those that I have trusted in the past and who have come up with the goods.  I may not notice all the people who work well and achieve good results, but I will notice the unexpected.  For example

·         I am impressed and I remember when good results come from someone I hadn’t trusted.

·         I suddenly take note of a person who has been in my entourage and consistent for a long time.

I also remember the unexpectedly disappointing.

·         I notice if I trust someone who then goes on to fail to deliver or to make good on promises.

Trusting relationships, business, professional and personal alike, are built up over the years and stand the test of time.  We have built up a working history together.  A crucial factor for a trusting relationship is the belief in the absence of vested interests.

An envelope is as important as a letter

The information at the centre of the decision making process will be brought to me by people with whom I have varying levels of trust.  In addition, the way the arguments and logic are framed will make a difference.  I am more likely to understand (and as a result trust) a person who matches my way of thinking and uses the same level of technical language or jargon as me.

The road to becoming a trusted advisor

You may not hold the pen that signs all the forms, but there are ways you can build up your reputation as a trusted advisor in order to gain influence.

1.       Match your communication style to your listener and his / her level of knowledge

2.       Do what you say you’ll do.  Demonstrate again and again that you can be trusted.

3.       Be open about your relationships with others and any conflicts of interest.  Knowing in advance is far better than finding out by accident later.

4.       Communicate about the reliability of your information.  Tell people if you think this is a trusted document or if you think that the information is biased.  Be prepared to say why.  You’ll gain the reputation of being able to analyze information before you present it.

Cate Farrall