Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1515304
44 SMT007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2024 In a complex sale, expect to find all four roles present; some participants may have more than one role. As a salesperson, it is crucial to identify the decision-makers and their roles. e next step is to understand each decision- maker's assessment of the situation and their buying influences. In their book, Miller and Heiman identify four perspectives or "positions" that a deci- sion-maker might take: • Growth: is person believes that the performance gap can be closed by either just making more, by making it better, or both. If your proposal does either, you'll have their attention. • Trouble: Something has deviated from the intended plan and the buyer needs help. Show that your proposal will quickly eliminate the issue and you've got a sale. • Even keel: is buyer doesn't see any gaps between the present and desired state. ey don't have an incentive to change. • Overconfident: is buyer is unreceptive to change because they see actual results as better than expected. Both you and your customer "always have a position, and for that reason you always have a strategy, whether or not you can articulate what it is," the authors write. No matter their role, decision-makers who have a "growth" or "trouble" perspective are more receptive to new solutions than "even keel" or "overconfi- dent." Pragmatically, getting the last two to shi their perspective can make or break your resolve. is is where the coach role delivers value: Understanding each influencer's motive and position can help you deliver something they each need as a part of the sale. e authors write, "e first thing you need to do with each account is to make your cur- rent position visible." A Personal Example Early in my career, I worked as a factory- based technical expert at an EDA soware company. My specialty was IC design veri- fication soware. It was my job to work with account managers and their FAE partners in sales situations. When qualifying a new account, the account manager would concen- trate on finding all the decision-makers, under- standing their roles, and concentrating on rela- tionships with the economic decision-mak- ers. e FAE would use the account manager's org chart to work with the technical and user decision-makers to understand what problems needed to be solved—the win/win. As a tech expert, my role was to help find solutions back at the factory with which to deliver that win/ win combination. When we played our roles properly, the cus- tomer's decision-makers would organically develop a business case stating the problem to be solved, how we would help them solve it, and financial details culminating in a projected ROI. Almost always, there was a "compelling event"—a broken process, an inefficient tool or method, a capacity issue, or the like. It was this pain point that would convert "even keel" and "overconfident" decision-makers into moti- vated participants. Once we uncovered that compelling event, we could demonstrate how to resolve that critical breakdown. For IC layout verification customers, the compelling event was usually that the IC designs required too many prototype samples