Should you target the decision-maker or the champion? I bet most of you would say, “Target the decision-maker. They sign the check, after all.” Not so fast, advises Garrett Mehrguth, CEO and co-founder of Directive, a performance marketing company for SaaS brands.
Think about how a decision-maker (the boss) makes decisions. They say the manager (the champion) who reports to them, “Let’s look into some options for this product. Go do some research, pick your favorite two or three, and I’ll help make a decision on those.”
The decision-make is not doing the research. The champion is.
If you are going to help this team, you need content that the champion can find. Once you are found and make the cut, you need a sales process that is targeted at the decision-maker.
Then, after the sales is made, you need customer success targeted at the champion again because that is who you will be working with.
Garrett says it perfectly:
"We make our point of contact (the champion) the star of the show. Our goal is that our contact gets promoted. Our goal is that they get a raise. Our goal is that they look good. Our goal is that at every meeting they have, they have the best presentation deck prepared.”
When is the last time you helped your customer create their deck for their meeting with their boss?
Think about it.
There is nothing more helping sells that helping your point of contact look good.
This is exactly what we talked about with Allison Pickens (Ep. 81), chief operating officer at Gainsight. That the ultimate outcome of any customer engagement is that your main point of contact gets promoted. Hey, Linkedin…we are calling on you to allow us all to call the job title change data so we can monitor the ultimate metric.: Promotions!
Some of you might still be thinking that you should target the decision-maker. Listen carefully to this part of Garrett’s episode. He reminds us that we, as sellers, have very limited access to our decision-makers. The boss, is good at managing up, not down. And let’s face it…the product or service we offer is down. It’s run and used by managers and the team that works for the manager. Our offering is not run by the decision-maker.
Running the business process that your software is designed for is why decision-makers have managers.
Make the manager look good, and you will look good.
More about Garrett:
His company, Directive: https://directiveconsulting.com/case-studies/
The Directive Institute: https://directiveconsulting.com/institute/
180 Garrett Mehrguth Make Your Customer the Star of the Show