According to Salesforce, 68% of salespeople struggle to reach a decision-maker. Indeed, according to an IKO System study, it now takes approximately 8 attempts to reach a contact with real decision-making power, compared to only 4 six years ago. What if your salespeople aren’t targeting the right decision-makers?
Indeed, all training programs teach salespeople to find an “advocate” within their clients’ companies, meaning a project champion; someone who will sufficiently embrace their product to become its champion within their own company. And this “champion” often has very specific and similar characteristics1:
- Accessible; available when asked for an appointment
- Provides valuable information about their organization
- Has strong influence over others
- Is known for saying true and interesting things
- Is considered reliable by colleagues
- Often supports innovative and persuasive projects
- Keeps their commitments
- Personally benefits from buying your product
However, a project champion who possesses all these qualities does not exist. It would be like sending your salespeople on a wild goose chase. Often, a decision-maker will combine one or more of these qualities, but never all of them together; and often the salesperson will miss out on this potential ally who could have opened doors within their organization.
So what are the true types of decision-makers encountered in business and what are their qualities? Here are the results of a field study conducted by the Harvard Business Review, which identified 72.
Types of Decision-Makers
1. The Drivers
Drivers are motivated by organizational transformation: they constantly seek innovative solutions and are not afraid to implement them when found.
2. The Mentors
Insightful, Mentors are often sought out by colleagues for their valuable advice. They are particularly persuasive regarding decisions to be made.
3. The Skeptics
Tired of overly vast and complicated projects, Skeptics reject almost any new idea. Even when they support a new project, they advocate for a very cautious and measured approach.
4. The Guides
Always up-to-date with the latest news, Guides share information about their company that is normally inaccessible to external parties.
5. The Friends
As their name suggests, Friends are very accessible. They will be happy to help salespeople and connect them with other decision-makers in their organization.
6. The Ambitious
The Ambitious will support a project that will be personally profitable to them and likely to bring them rewards (promotion or gains).
7. The Blockers
The term “anti-decision-maker” would suit them better because they support things as they are and are not enthusiastic about change. They have little interest in speaking with external parties.
According to the research results conducted by HBR, the majority of salespeople gravitate towards Guides, Friends, and Ambitious individuals – who can be grouped under the term Communicators; while the best salespeople turn to Drivers, Mentors, and Skeptics – who can be grouped under the term Engines.
Communicators are approachable and readily share information about their company – and for this reason, they are particularly attractive to salespeople. But if you want to sign a contract and not just have a pleasant conversation, Communicators won’t be of much help. They generally lack the resources needed to build consensus around a complex purchasing project.
However, Communicators are the ones who most closely fit the description of an ‘advocate’ or project sponsor: this reinforces the performance shortfall that companies seek to improve.
Although they may seem like the ideal target for your salespeople at first, especially if they are high-ranking, they are not the ones who will bring you results.
Target the Engine decision-makers
Conversely, a conversation with an Engine will not be easy: they are focused on performance and the productivity of change for their organization. They will embrace your ideas and advice before embracing your product or company. That’s why it’s better to engage them with a content-based approach rather than a traditional, product-centric sales approach.
Engines primarily seek disruptive ideas, new strategies, and the experts who will help them implement them: they will ask many questions to test your expertise, which is a good sign. Drivers because they want to act, Mentors because they want to share, and Skeptics because they want to test. Their questions should not be taken as hostility but rather as a sign of interest – and the best salespeople feel all the more encouraged by the difficulty and demands they will encounter.
According to a salesperson interviewed by HBR: “If the client isn’t skeptical and doesn’t push me to my limits, then I’ve made a mistake somewhere or they aren’t truly interested.”
Be aware that being an Engine is not necessarily a matter of title, position, or seniority. High-ranking decision-makers are just as likely to be Communicators or Blockers. It’s better to prioritize an Engine lower in the hierarchy, who will be able to get their organization to embrace your project thanks to their drive, rather than relying on a high-ranking executive of the Communicator type who won’t be able to advance your project (due to lack of time or inability to create true consensus around your solution).
How to identify an Engine?
The first step is to test the client’s reaction to provocative content (such as telling a sales director: most sales directors don’t use the right KPIs, and that significantly weakens your organization’s performance).
The client then has three possible reactions:
- They simply reject the information,
- They accept it,
- They test the veracity of this claim.
If they accept, you have likely encountered a Communicator or a Bouncer; whereas if they respond with ‘where do your sources come from, or, I haven’t observed that in my organization,’ then you are facing skepticism that leaves you an opening and indicates a Driver. Below is a conversation diagram with the different types mentioned.
Source: HBR
And you, do you recognize yourself in one of these types?
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1 This list of characteristics comes from a study conducted by HBR based on training materials from a dozen companies.
2 For this study, over 700 decision-makers were interviewed, all of whom had been involved in complex B2B purchases and had an impact on the purchasing decision within an organization.