A pre-Christian legend tells of the terror of a huge dragon that lived in a lake over the inhabitants of the city of Lydda in Palestine.
The inhabitants of this region turned to their ruler for help. He told them that the problem with the dragon would be solved if they sacrificed one child every day. The people accepted this, and every morning one child was left by the lake and soon devoured. In the end, it was the ruler's only daughter's turn.
St. George was a random passerby, while the princess was waiting for the dragon to come out of the lake. George stuck his spear into the dragon's jaws and thus saved the princess and the inhabitants of the nearby town and entered the legend.
What sales roles do you recognize in the characters listed?
Regardless of whether it was about selling goods or services, in B2B sales there is a lot of emphasis on the decision maker who is usually "hidden" behind the "wonderful" titles of founder, CEO, owner of the capital.
I understand why. Salespeople have fixed targets, and time is always short, so with the logic of "putting the dragon into the head", they invest their efforts to contact people in high positions because "they know best what they need". Selling to the "C" level is complex, and it can become more complex if you stay exclusively at this level, and without allies.
The princess from this legend did not have many options before her. She stood and waited for the dragon. She probably thought about what she needed to do to appease the dragon to spare her?! Will she have time to negotiate so that her sacrifice would bring lasting peace to the inhabitants of the city? How do I make it as painless as possible? If the princess were a salesperson, marketing would provide her with a "deck" for all these doubts.
St. St. George, a random horseman passing by, when he heard the princess's story, decides to act quickly and efficiently, thrusts his spear into the dragon's jaws and gets rewarded later.
The princess is not a salesman, but then who is?
- The ruler - founder, CEO, owner of capital. It was important for him to rule, that the court is comfortable, that the city's residents pay taxes (probably), that these same residents should pay for his peace and comfort by sacrificing their own children.
- The princess - middle management. Focused on the effectiveness of his sacrifice on others
- St. George - end user. Focused on the efficiency of his actions with very limited resources (spear).
Like most legends and fairy tales, this one has a happy ending, St. George received the entire city's conversion to Christianity as a reward. The princess survived, and the ruler continued to rule.
If by any chance St. If George had ignored the princess and gone to the ruler to see what was really going on and what was behind the whole situation, he would probably have become the head of security at the palace. The princess would have been killed, and the city's inhabitants would have been met with a new victim the very next day.
Nobody in this story is a salesman, obviously. However, if you want to be a professional salesperson, and due to lack of time, you neglect to identify the needs of all three levels in the organization you intend to work with (full qualification of the potential buyer/client), there is a greater chance that you will end up as a dragon than as St. George. Maybe George just got lucky.
If you are interested in discussing your sales systems and approaches, schedule a consultation. It costs nothing, but our time.
Dragan Vukosavljević
Sales Development Consultant
