“ To supplement lack of access to decision makers, the rep will need to bring to bear a panoply of sales skills: homework preparation, listening, questioning, adding value, flawless follow-up, and so forth. A champion is like a gatekeeper on steroids, so the rep needs to be on steroids, too.”
That’s a familiar problem for smallish defense electronics firms that sell to the intelligence community, according to Jake Wise, executive vice president for sales and market- ing for a communications software provider. “There’s a real sensitivity around national security and, in some cases, we’ve been involved in programs where we don’t even know who the real customer is,” he says. Rather than bemoan their lack of access, though, com- panies like Wise’s have perfected the art of getting their customer contacts to do their selling for them. Here’s how to transform a gatekeeper into a champion who will move your agenda forward.
Defensive Selling The defense electronics market is dominated by a handful of very large government contractors. These large firms tend to integrate various components into finished sys- tems, leaving the more creative design and development work to smaller firms. In some cases, the large “prime con- tractor” will subcontract to a smaller firm; in other cases, the military takes bids directly from the smaller firms. Either way, the small electronics firm is often at a dis- advantage – especially when the product will be used for intelligence work. While the military traditionally works hand-in-glove with the big contractors, it prefers to hide its decision making process from the vendors who lack a decades-long history of military work.” By design, members of this community don’t necessarily know one another all that well or know what others are working on or perhaps even who they work for,” says Wise. Under the circumstances, selling into this market sometimes seems like “a puzzle inside a riddle,” as Wise puts it. Small electronics firms must therefore either work
through the prime contractor or with a lower-level contact within the customer organization. Either way, the success of the sales efforts will be based upon the rep’s ability to cultivate and train a “champion” who will move the smaller firm’s agenda forward. This indirect form of selling takes time, patience, and money, according to Wise, but the benefits are correspondingly large – because government
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contracts, once won, establish ongoing, high-margin rev- enue with very little downside risk. While most corporate decision makers aren’t likely to be as inaccessible as the spymasters in Washington, your reps can use the same techniques as the defense firms when- ever the buying processes are being kept willfully opaque.
Finding the Right Rep
The first step to making this technique work is to realize that not every rep is well suited for this kind of sales activity. Experience in the target industry is a must. Even though
the rep never gets to call on the decision makers and may never understand the entire buying process, he or she must be able to generally understand what’s going on – if only to provide meaningful coaching to the would-be champion. The rep must therefore have some experience as an insider, according to Wise. “Despite the mystery of it all, knowing the right players is key – and this gener- ally comes from people who have lived in that space for a reasonable period of time.” The rep will also need superlative sales skills, according to the consultant. “To supplement lack of access to deci- sion makers, the rep will need to bring to bear a panoply of sales skills: homework preparation, listening, question- ing, adding value, flawless follow-up, and so forth,” she says. “A champion is like a gatekeeper on steroids, so the rep needs to be on steroids, too.” Finally, the rep will need an extraordinary fund of patience, since the inability to know exactly what’s going on means the rep will frequently be forced to “hurry up and wait.”
Finding the Right Champion Assuming the rep understands the industry and has the requisite sales skills, the next requirement is an appropriate customer (or partner) contact. Obviously, the rep will want to work with an effective champion – not necessarily the person with the most important job title, but rather the per- son with the greatest potential to be effectively coached. In other words, the rep needs to think like a manager who’s recruiting a rep from a group of likely candidates.
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