A perspective shift for sellers
A common assumption among B2B sellers, especially those in the early stages of their career, is that they are in a weak position relative to executive buyers. These sellers are haunted and hobbled by their perceived disadvantages: outsider status, lack of authority, ignorance of the domain, misalignment of interests, and so on. They use phrases like "thank you for your time" as they kick off a meeting, needlessly signaling a supplicant posture.
The best sellers invert these assumptions. They are confident in the value they bring to executives because they knowingly embrace three sources of strength: objectivity, neutrality, and capacity.
1) Objectivity
The sobering truth about most companies is that people don't talk to each other. Teams are siloed by function, geography, and level. Employees become preoccupied with local concerns and lose touch with adjacent realities. Executives find themselves increasingly dissociated from the day-to-day ordeals on the front lines, especially in a hybrid environment.
Great sellers talk to everyone they can until they develop a panoramic perspective on the business. This perspective can be tremendously valuable to an executive. Sellers can uncover opportunities, expose weaknesses, and make connections that are less obvious to company insiders. Sellers can turn their outsider status into a powerful asset.
2) Neutrality
Companies are political environments. As such, people perceive limits on how candid they can be with colleagues. They share information judiciously so as not to imperil their personal brand and agenda.
Sellers are not part of this game. They are neutral observers, and this brings advantages that are similar to what we see in our personal lives as well. Harvard professor Mario Luis Small has shown that people generally confide their most private and pressing concerns to people with whom they have weaker ties, thereby avoiding judgment, blowback, or drama.
Something akin to this can happen when sellers create a forum in which executives can speak their mind without fear of personal consequence. The seller can become a confidante who listens attentively, without faultfinding or suspicion, and makes genuine attempts to understand and solve a problem.
3) Capacity
Finally, many executives are frustrated by their inability to advance important initiatives. They have been forced to make trade-offs because of resource constraints, and this limits the scope of their potential impact. The best sellers show a level of competence and energy that executives immediately recognize as valuable.
In effect, great sellers can become an extension of the executive's team, providing adjunct capacity. The seller is professionally motivated to go above and beyond in addressing the client's needs, and the client can harness the skill and will of a new dedicated resource. The seller can thus inspire a bigger vision of what's possible over the executive's tour of duty.
In sales, as in so many areas, mindset is the water table that nourishes success. How you perceive yourself profoundly affects the way you are perceived. All too often, conventional assumptions can be diminishing, and we need to flip the frame.