Is Your Prospect in a Coma?
"We have no business leaders anymore, just special interests.
Our city is in a coma."
These are views I read around a current election campaign in a major city of Western democracy.
The lament of someone there who was apparently 'a long-time architect of infrastructure improvements made in the 1980s and 1990s'.
They coincided with a separate view I also came across worrying that the only true commercial innovation spotted at present was from family-owned or founder-led concerns.
On the basis you need three points to draw a straight line, try this for contemporaneous full trifecta alarm.
“Putting an incompetent administrative ruling class — that doesn’t know anything about the work that’s being done — in charge of people producing the actual work is the most insane concept that modern society has come up with.”
The thoughts of a now unsurprisingly renowned tech ceo. Who sacked an entire department of bureaucrats. London's The Times chose the headline;
"HR are nothing but a retardant on the day-to-day activities of a company".
Whilst fuelling many water cooler whispers, this actually has something keen to say about our current Solution Sales climes.
Many, if not all then plenty, opportunities we pursue require a dash of the innovative thought about the buyer.
Beyond the obvious case of the new product pitch, our unique often springs forth from them thinking a bit differently to how they have before.
It could be through supplier relationship re-framing, that ol' devil process change and its delightful streamlining chats, even (although less likely this current cycle) payment terms.
A mindset that is sadly far from universal.
Yet we can get to grips with this ahead of any competition.
Take that opening quote up top.
Leaning on the negative:
Who are their 'business leaders'? What have they set out as the buyer org's drivers?
Are there 'special interests'? Where do they lurk?
Is the company 'in a coma'? Can we help fashion a lightening from said torpor?
Or must we qualify out?