by
Bud Hilton
I wish I had coined this phrase but I can’t take credit. My son, who has spent 16 years or so with our company and is now our President, made this statement one day when I said to him, “I wish we could get through the maze and find out who, at this particular company, can approve our project.” He simply directed me to not look for the one who can say “yes” . . . find the one that is saying “NO” and impeding the search. The more I thought of this the more I knew he was right (darn, that was hard to admit).
It’s true, but hard to swallow, that in most corporate structures you can find a lot of people that will agree to the need of many products and services that are presented. Their jobs are to take their well-researched recommendation to their bosses for approval. You have probably been caught in this triangle of “pending forward movement” many times. Most times the one carrying your story to their boss does not even want to tell you WHY they were unsuccessful; so knowledge of the real decision to decline “rests in that limbo world.” Really brash salespeople try to uncover the real decision maker by leading with that always-dangerous question . . . “who will make final decision on this project?” Right off, you are telling your first line of contact that you do not believe they have much power.
The best line of attack to determining the final “NO Chief” is to develop a series of questions to arrive at who possibly could “own” certain areas that are impediments to your success. Once you have identified corporate hurdles, you can fashion certain questions to gather your information and thus narrow down your winding paths. So, let’s look at some obvious things that create NO answers:
WE CAN’T AFFORD THIS! - First glance says this is a “Finance Department” issue. Not always true. Budgets for expenses are many times owned by other department heads in Sales, Marketing, Procurement, etc., and can be “swapped” internally if logic becomes a prevalent issue. Many large companies “budget for spend” but may not budget for ROI-oriented value. In other words, if your project comes with a potential Return-On-Investment that is greater than its expense, you may have a fighting chance to sell its value. Presentation of “more money” is always a good thing to arm your buyer with. At least you might get closer to finding out who is wielding the NO axe.
ISLAND GUARDS – Some companies are loaded with Island Guards (IGs) whose main goal in life is to maintain their island and all the report-ees that live there. If benefits, of your product or service, are at the expense of replacing what has become comfortable to the IG, then your chances are slim and you MUST seek a higher level of potential “NO Gods.” You will have to develop your own tricks to circumvent the IGs and retain your head.
STATUS QUO – This is a tough one. Why are these folks seeking a better solution if an SQ situation exists? Yeah! You are peeling back the onion, now. In many cases this area may bridge over from the IG situations, mentioned above. Some companies place responsible people in buying positions that simply believe OR are led to believe that they are not doing “too bad” now with their current way of doing things. Wow, that “too bad” area is usually broad and cloudy. The killer question(s) to explore is something like . . . “what is your current incidence of experience in qualified numbers?” Of course you will not get the right answer but may get some folks to thinking. Try to ask these kind of questions when the “bosses” are around. Quality managers do not normally like answers such as “pretty good,” “not too bad,” etc.
IT IS HARD TO HEAR THE NO PERSON – You can’t hear them because they are generally shielded by the YES folks and it is your job to uncover them. So, rather than taking you on too much deeper of a dive, I think you get the idea. Stop looking for yes people and make your plans to find the one that is saying NO.
Bud Hilton
Chairman/CEO Genesis Group Inc., Answers Systems