How to use WIIFM as you seek to find and engage more stakeholders

Hello Sales Reset Community

This week, we’re reviewing how to find and engage more stakeholders in your significant opportunities.

We started the week with the assumption that there are almost always more stakeholders than initially thought!

We introduced the need to earn the trust of your initial contact. They must be sufficiently confident before introducing and recommending you to their colleagues.

We looked at some key ways you can build this trust:

1. Collaborate: Working together to define challenges and opportunities.

2. Coach: Take your selling to the next level by COACHING your customers.

3. Insights: The foundation of your coaching role with customers is your ability to use your specialist product and market knowledge to share valuable insights and ask great questions.

4. Outcomes: Dive deep into what matters to them.

5. Deliver: Whatever you say you’ll do, do!

Identifying more stakeholders

Now, all we have to do is identify and engage these stakeholders.

And, of course, that’s much easier to say than to do!

However, it starts with a simple question: “Who else will be affected by what we’re discussing?”

You can use all your experience with other customers to prompt your contact.

It's likely that your contact has not considered all the implications of what they’re discussing with you for some stakeholders.

How to make your principal contact a HERO!

This is your opportunity to make your initial contact a hero!

You’ll help them consider the implications of the investment they’re considering. One of the most significant outcomes of coaching your customers will be their growing awareness of all the other people who might be affected.

You’ll help your contact prioritise these additional stakeholders. Together, you’ll develop an action plan for recruiting these stakeholders to join your discussions.

You’ll enable your principal contact to improve their standing with their colleagues. They’ll be seen as genuinely motivated to identify and incorporate broader needs and priorities as proposals are developed.

WIIFM: What’s in it for me?

Like every other aspect of selling, a key topic when coaching your contact about stakeholders is “What’s in it for me?”

After identifying and prioritising stakeholders, help your contact think through WIIFM for each stakeholder. That’s how to get them engaged!

In our Sales Reset Stories Workshop yesterday, one of our members told us about their experience.

Their contact was researching a potential solution on behalf of a senior colleague. Our member asked their principal contact about the likely reaction from this senior colleague to what was being discussed.

A few minutes of discussion enabled this contact to think through WIIFM from their senior colleague’s perspective. This led to a subsequent meeting with this senior stakeholder. And the story ended with a significant win for everybody!

Join us in our FREE Workshop next week

Join us on Tuesday at 4:30 pm UK time for next week’s Sales Reset Stories Workshop.

Every week, we share stories about the theme of the Weekly Sales Reset in a small group discussion. It will be great to hear your stories and learn from your experiences!

We hope you’re having a great week!

The Sales Reset Team

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