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

Peaceful Coexistence

Two words characterize what it takes for a Divisional strategy to succeed: peaceful coexistence. The question, however, is how this actually comes to be. What could possibly prompt two parties who inherently distrust each other to work together? When the concept was first introduced, it primarily involved post–World War II Russia, a communist nation, and the United States, a democratic nation, joining forces. In essence, the Soviet Union wanted to improve relations with the West and offset the notion that Russia’s goal was world revolution. But what does that have to do with selling?

Two factors drove world acceptance of this new concept: risk and reward. The risk part for these two nations was easy to understand: peaceful coexistence would reduce the tension between them; that would in turn reduce the risk of mistakes and bad judgment that could potentially trigger a nuclear war. On the reward side, the Russians aimed to defeat the West with a focus on economics, because they believed that socialism would ultimately triumph over capitalism. So the reward for them was the ability to spread socialism more quickly, which is why they formed the World Peace Council in 1949.

These same two factors apply to the deployment of the Divisional strategy. The risk motivation for a competitor exists when they feel that their solution to a customer’s requirements might fail and put future business in jeopardy. This will compel them to run a risk assessment on you. If they ...