The New Power Base Selling: Master The Politics, Create Unexpected Value and Higher Margins, and Outsmart the Competition

Building Influential Relationships

Building relationships with influential people begins by knowing what kind of relationships you want to build. At the end of the day, the value that you provide to individuals at both the business and personal levels, all that you have in common with them and your level of compatibility in terms of operating principles, will result in the development of a certain type of relationship. That doesn’t mean that everyone is going to like you; however, it does suggest that defeating your competition will be like rolling a big rock uphill if you get the relationships wrong—possible, but never fun and always exhausting.

Consistent with their belief in sales as a management science, Stage IV Customer Advisors have a process and method for characterizing customer relationships. As Figure 7.5 playfully suggests, they do not leave it up to chance or luck.

Figure 7.5: Don’t Rely on Santa’s “Nice List” to Characterize Your Relationships

So, let’s take a look at the five types of relationships that will populate your account landscape, as depicted in Figure 7.6, from most to least desirable.

Figure 7.6: Five Types of Relationships

1. The Ally is a strong advocate, committed to you and your company’s current and future success. He or she proactively assists ...