Things have changed.
Everyone feels differently about whatever it is you sell. Economic uncertainty makes people act differently, even when they used to buy lots of your stuff. Your problems are now different problems. So your approach needs to strategically shift.
My friend and favorite psychology bodhisattva, Dr. Steven Feinberg, writes at length about the idea of strategic shifting in his excellent book, The Advantage Makers. The idea is that you must change the rules, the perspective, the focal length of your problem if you are to solve it. Expecting different results from the same approach is madness.
Are you trying to beat down the doors and reach hard to reach people? Change the rules and approach them in a different way, using a different stakeholder, and treat that stakeholder in a way that they don’t expect. Make friends where they expect you to be adversarial. Help them do what they have been doing as opposed to preaching to them that they’re missing something important.
Are you trying to sell something to people who aren’t buying because their budgets are cut? Because they are actually afraid that their jobs will be the next to go? Change the rules and offer them something much easier – a chance to try for very little what usually costs a lot, a chance to collaborate and network with peers and potential allies, and maybe given them a chance to get exclusive information.
You don’t always have to fight your battles head on.
A change of perspective – a strategic shift – can give you new eyes on a persistent problem. New eyes help, too – assembling your team of smart guys from the outside often provide you with the fresh insights you lack from being too close and being too steeped in your own culture to see. This is what Roger would call Being the Fool, if I took a card from his deck. All innovation comes from elsewhere, so cultivate it.
If you haven’t picked it up, give it a read. These are timely insights for a turbulent time.
Regards.
It would be curious to see just what percentage of CMO’s (either globally or in North America) is actually closely aware of the ‘writings on the wall’ when it comes to making a strategic shift as you so described. Good read.
If you asked them that question directly, you’d get an emphatic 100% response in the affirmative. If you ask their CEO’s or direct reports, you’d get an emphatic response 180 degrees in the other direction. We think we’re “keeping to the plan,” or “being persistent,” when in fact we’re waiting for something to happen that won’t.
This is why reminding yourself as a decision maker – or being reminded by ‘other eyes’ from the outside – is so critical to this problem. It isn’t the complexity of the task, even though this is plenty complex; it’s the need to consciously do it – to bring the idea of strategic shifting back up even after you’ve slapped the blinders back on.
Much of influence training follows this same path. Hearing that it’s smarter to give before you ask to receive is common sense. And yet, it’s so seldom done. Our sales incentives rely on a rewards system – do this and I’ll give you that – which is backwards. Our channel incentives rely on bribes, in so many words – I’ll do this but only because it commits you to doing that. Again, backwards. We need to constantly surface such ideas like touchstones and keep them visible so we catch ourselves when we fall back into our bad habits. We must also bring others into our confidence and teach this sort of common vocabulary so we can all “Be the Fool” for each other, reminding ourselves to do the right thing as opposed to the “satisficing” option at hand.
Thanks for your comment!
Good stuff all around, Steve-O!
Thanks for the shout-out (sorry to be late to get back to you; I’m just back from 10 days in Argentina for business and pleasure).
Hope all is going well!