B2B Sales management: Who is in charge?

The Pawn on the chess board

Simple question, but often a difficult one, especially in B2B.

In this piece we will focus on the customer’s side. Yes because you should also respond to the same question having your organization in mind. (*) 

So back to the customer. “Who is in charge?”. More often than you think you will find yourself in the shoes of Denzel Washington's character in the movie “Deja vu”. Have a look.

Everyone claims to be in charge. But remember what they say about dogs: “The weaker they are the louder they bark”.

The larger the organization of your customer is, the more difficult it will be to find the answer to the question. And most probably, it won't be only one person, but several. The more transverse your project is, the more departments at your customer it will impact, the more people involved in the decision process, with more or less influence, you will face. Welcome to the game Sherlock Holmes.

To help you in your quest, the first hint can be the function, role, or title of the person. Here you can use the “official” organization chart. It is a good start to put the main pieces on the chess board: the king, the queen, the rook, the knight, the bishop. But you should not forget the “unofficial” one. Otherwise you might miss the pawn. And “the pawns are the soul of chess”. According to the chess master Philidor.

“ …to play the pawns well; they are the soul of chess: it is they which uniquely determine the attack and the defense, and on their good or bad arrangement depends entirely the winning or losing of the game.”

The pawn might be rather silent, hidden, secretive. You have to hunt them down.

This part of the job is an exciting one. And an endless one because you have to stay on top of any change in the organization of your customer. It might impact your project. I learned this the hard way. 

So how do you find them? Well first let me tell you how not to find them: by talking. Yes. Your best tool to identify them is - once again - by “asking questions”. And good ones. And as importantly by listening carefully to the answer. 

What it implies is that when you find yourself in a meeting - taking as a prerequisite that you a/ are the orchestrator of your team so you are in control (meaning everyone has a role, the one you gave to them) b/ you have rehearsed to some degree ahead of the meeting (*) - you have to pay attention to the given answers but also to nonverbal cues and to details.

This will help you identify the different players and their level of influence. This will help you identify “Who is in charge?”.

And finally “Where did you say the coffee pot was”?  

(*) we will come back to those topics more in details another time.

Source: https://chessfox.com/pawn-structures-why-pawns-are-the-soul-of-chess/