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

Timing and the Element of Surprise

The upfront speed and back-end surprise are key elements of the Indirect strategy. As stated earlier, some sellers will hold back on the Unexpected Value until a very specific and crucial point in time. For example, you are running two separate sales campaigns simultaneously for our ATM sales opportunity: one based on expected value to the Facilities Department and the other based on Unexpected Value to the retail banking business unit.

This requires that you align quickly with the Situational Power Base. You need to Milestone Stack to observe that the retail banking Fox will likely become the Situational Fox and that he will direct the Facilities Department Power Base. While gathering this type of insight early in a sales campaign depends on the flurry of activity associated with Stacking, this upfront speed enables you to achieve the element of back-end surprise for two reasons:

1. The unexpected potential value that moves you high up on the Sales Value Chain is intangible and therefore invisible to your competition.

2. Your competition is likely to believe that you are implementing a Direct strategy. His Supporters will inform him that you have been calling on the Facilities Department and haven’t made a stronger case for lower price and increased uptime. When your apparent Direct approach appears weak, as it almost always will, your competitor may develop a false sense of security that causes him to become overconfident. He may therefore ...