B2B 18: threading a needle, swiss cheese and engineering sales

b2b stuff 2

Note from Bruce:

I was recently asked by an interesting B2B company to write some blog posts and new business direct mail thoughts. They were interesting because <a> they wanted to focus on a smarter, more intelligent, level of thinking in their communication <b> they truly had an ‘edge’ to them in terms of attitude, and <c> they were interested in taking on specific objections they hear day in and day out in a candid fashion. It was fun for me and I generated maybe 20 draft thoughts for them in less than 3 days. The following shares my favorites <in rough draft form and the name of the company removed>.

 

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It may seem counter intuitive when your B2B sales program includes 100’s of target companies and 1000’s of decision makers involved to state that B2B sales development is often like threading a needle.

Yet, the uncomfortable truth about engineering sales is all those massive spreadsheets and contact reports come down to the ability to thread the needle and tie up the sale.

 

 

Sales engineering takes a steady hand, calm, patient focus and the ability to slide the important information thru a sometimes very small window of opportunity. This creates some problems in implementing sales programs.

Sales programs sometimes struggle to balance the sheer volume aspect and the threading the needle aspect.

In addition, sales people tend to do what they do best and avoid doing what they don’t do best <and also tend to focus on the ‘make money aspect’>.

 

 

Let’s take the threading the needle aspect one step farther to the fact in sales, well, most often you get one chance. B2B sales can be brutal in this aspect. The opportunity to make the sale arises once within a very long cycle. We state this to note mistakes, even a minor one; at any stage in the buying process will have major consequences.

 

 

This is where Swiss cheese comes in.

 

 

The most impressive illustration of the causes and effects of mistakes is the human error or Swiss cheese model by James Reason.

 

collosal mistakes and swiss cheese telaffects

Healthcare example of Swiss Cheese & Colossal mistakes

 

The model compares the different levels on which mistakes occur with slices of Swiss cheese.

 

 

In a mistake-free world, the cheese would have no holes. But in the real world, the cheese is cut into thin slices, and every slice has many holes that are in different places in different slices. Imagine the holes as conduits for mistakes. A mistake remains unnoticed or irrelevant if it penetrates only one hole in one of the slices. But it can lead to catastrophe if the holes in the different slices align and the mistake passes through all the holes in all of the defenses.

 

Mikael Krogerus & Roman Tschäppeler

 

 

With any, and every, B2B sales engineering process there contains multiple slices of swiss cheese where when finally stacked in a process often contain unnoticed mistakes which have fatal consequences in B2B sales.

 

That is why a sales process needs engineering – an engine that gets tuned and checked not assessing human action but rather engine effectiveness.

 

Now.

 

Everyone makes mistakes. Some people learn from them, while others repeat them. When it comes to sales and people there are different types of mistake:

 

 

• real mistakes – occur when the wrong process is carried out

 

 

• black-outs – occur when part of a process is forgotten

 

 

• slip-ups – occur when the right process is carried out incorrectly
There are various levels on which mistakes occur:

 

 

• skill-based – lack of appropriate skills

 

• rule-based – program rules/guidelines dictate behavior

 

 

• knowledge-based – lack of necessary knowledge

 

 

Company X knows that understanding the potential issues, let’s call them “the slices of swiss cheese”, is the first step to solving the issues – which is all incorporated into the Company X Model.

 

Interestingly <at least to us> whether we realized it or not when we developed our sales engineering model we incorporated THE DOUBLE-LOOP LEARNING MODEL to minimize mistakes, efficiently thread the needle and make sure the Swiss cheese holes never lined up.

 

 

Double-loop learning involves reflecting on actions and learning from them.

 

double loop learning and why telaffects successful

 

 

Double loop learning is based on the idea of ‘second order observation’ a theory developed by theoreticians Heinz von Foerster and Niklas Luhmann.

 

 

First-order observers see things as they appear to them. For them, the world is simply there.

Second-order observers, on the other hand, attribute what the first-order observers see to how they see it. In other words, second-order observers observe a way of observing.

For example, you criticize a football referee for making a wrong decision, you are a second-order observer: your perspective is different from the referee’s because you are one step removed from the game and not actually calling the play, and you think that makes you a better judge.

 

During the act of observing, first-order observers are unaware of their own way of observing – it is their blind spot. Recognizing this blind spot enables second-order observers to become the ‘improvers’ of observations. They are able to point out to the first-order observers that it is possible to observe differently and thus see things differently.

 

The Company X Model is an effectively intertwined first & second observer methodology enabling the best of the first observer with the oversight of skilled second observer.

 

The psychologist Chris Argyris and the philosopher Donald Schön developed double-loop learning out of these theoretical ideas on observation. In the best-case scenario, the single loop <the first-order observation> is best practice.

Something that works well is not changed but simply repeated.

 

In the worst-case scenario it is worst practice – the same mistake is repeated, or a problem is solved without questioning how it arose in the first place.

 

 

In double-loop learning you think about and question what you are doing, and try to break your own pattern, not simply by doing something differently, but by thinking about why you do it the way you do it and the objectives behind the behavior. This suggests that if are fully aware of objectives/actions you may be able to change them.

 

The problem inherent in the double loop is the discrepancy between what we say we are about to do and what we actually do. If we really want to change something, it is not enough to create guidelines for our employees or ourselves, or to give directives. Real changes occur when we reassess our more deeply rooted reasons & objectives.

 

 

That may sound like a bunch of theoretical bullshit, however, we say all that because the Company X Model not only creates a steady hand but also constantly loops new information into the model so cues are constantly evaluated and stimulus adapts.

 

Our model is complex, intricate, consistent and adaptive and, most importantly, effective.

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Written by Bruce