Achieving One Degree Of Sales Separation

As Facebook shares rally to crazy levels (50-times earnings) in the wake of recent results, one of their pr items also topped global screens.

The Six Degrees of Separation concept is well-known. We are no more than 6 contacts away from any other person on the planet.

The world is getting smaller. Forget the original postal experiment. 6 shrinks today to 3.57.

In fact, the range of nearly everyone falls between only 2.9 and 4.2 degrees of separation.

3½. That’s quite a stat.

In complex sales, the most you can ever tolerate is surely 1°.

That means that anybody with clout/interest is either known to you, or to someone you know.

Perhaps ideally we’d like to be in a zero degree position. Namely, we know every single person involved directly. Feasible on smaller bids perhaps. But unrealistic for just about any corporate sign-off. 0°. Quite an aim though.

One of my favourite 2×2 grids comes from political mapping classes.

Propensity to buy from us set against level of overall cash-releasing influence. ♡ vs $.

So revealing who we need to mobilise to persuade whom.

Always a decent account review exercise. And a useful graphic via Facebook boffins to herald it as below;