The Rise of the Consensus-Based Sale First, we have seen a significant increase in the need for consensus in order
to get deals done. Because the payoff of buying a complex solution is so
uncertain, even C-level executives with significant decision-making
authority are unwilling to go out on a limb to make a large purchase
decision without the support of their teams. Our research indicates that
widespread support for a supplier across their team is the number-one thing
senior decision makers look for in making a purchase decision (a finding
we’ll discuss in more depth later in this book).
And of course, that need for consensus has huge implications for sales
productivity. Not only does the rep now have to spend the time tracking
down all these individuals and selling them on the solution, but the risk that
at least one of them is going to say no goes up with each new stakeholder
that rep has to engage.
Increased Risk Aversion Second, as deals have become more complex and more expensive, most
customers have become much more concerned about whether they’ll
ever see a return on their investment. As a result, many are moving aggressively
to require suppliers to share more deeply in the perceived higher risk of
these solutions themselves. It’s nothing new for customers to demand just-
in-time delivery or on-demand production, but more and more we’re seeing
revisions to the very metrics customers use to judge the success of a
solution implementation. As a result, in the world of complex solutions,
supplier success is often measured by the performance of the customer’s
business, not the supplier’s products.
Suppliers looking to grow a solutions business, then, are going to have
to run right at risk, building it directly into their value proposition, as an
increasingly large number of customers are no longer willing to accept at
face value that “solutions” will ultimately deliver the kind of value that
suppliers promise up front.
