The DRR of X-Event Sale Extinction
I see with incredulity that a group of scientists pursue DRR;
Disaster Risk Reduction.
Disappointingly, upon further reading a chance to discuss at depth the movie Armageddon presently evades this topic, in favour of volcanic destruction.
I learn that 74,000 years ago, half of humanity got wiped out by the Toba eruption.
These scientists contend that by 2100 another ‘supervolcano’ somewhere will blow and repeat such carnage. Possibly worse.
Nigh be that end of the world.
Perhaps even more crazily, the boffins request a global pot to fund their work. To the tune of £2 billion. A year. Nice work if you can get it.
I’m tempted to recall numerous examples of human migration in doom laden times. Is there forever harbour?
At first peak, I wondered whether an X-Event was akin to Never Events. Not really.
The ‘X’ is unavoidably destructive, rather than merely eradicable.
There was one X in my first sales role.
In the depths of the early-90s recession, negative equity afflicted property. The software house for which I travailed owned their hq. Yet its value had tanked. This rendered the balance sheet a mess. Many a bean counter considered it fatal. As usual, they knew nothing. Such an asset collapse made absolutely no difference to delivery, customer enjoyment, or future development.
Yet it did hammer sales.
Every time a blue-chip buyer got caught in the ego of their finance boss, we were in trouble.
Deal after deal sank.
Despite creativity overdrive, we couldn’t muster a sufficient riposte to this misplaced ‘going concern’ objection.
Yet that software still survives today, almost thirty years after inception.
Our X-event was the financial examination of our published accounts by the numbers chief.
As when appearing at the death it was so soul destroying, for a time we tried to bring this up early.
Yet this proved catastrophic.
So we stuck to not bothering about it.
Yes, we still lost hard-worked-on deals. At the worst possible stage.
One in particular coloured me for a long time. When the ink was drying.
It had to be taken on the chin. How ever painful.
But then one day, bricks and mortar regained their worth.
Almost overnight, the volcano rendered dormant.
That’s not to say all X-events should be ignored.
But it is possible to factor in their impact. Without resorting to wasting two billion quid.
Fatter funnels, stronger qualification, better defined sweet spots, divorce from sentiment.
You got an X-event?
It could be a particular competitor, requirement or re-structure.
When selling my own wares once I realised a takeover was such and so successfully budgeted for the related expected attrition.
Which is really my point.
In downtimes, there’s one theory that you need a pipeline of least 107% of normal to hit your mark.
If an X-event looms on your horizon, then you need to likely plan this same way. Now that’s DRR you can count on.