Look for the Eel
[Eel: Gatekeepers, deal spoilers, and nay-sayers at the whale company who work to prevent any sort of change.]
In every deal there is an eel. A person who is against the deal—maybe on principle, maybe because they’re your competitor’s champion or they fear they will be made to look bad if a new vendor is brought on. Hell, they may just be a curmudgeon who doesn’t want to see change. Regardless of the reason, you need to find the eel in the deal.
Now, old-school sales training says that you talk as much as possible to your champion and as little as possible to the eel. But here’s the problem: the eel is the one who has the power to kill you. Worse yet, eels have a tendency to hang out in the shadows. They’re hard to get to and they usually talk you down when you’re not around. The conversation may be innocuous…
And so on.
The bottom line is that eels try to get you out. I have a client that just lost a deal from an eel he never met and never will. What to do?
There’s always an eel: There’s an old saying in poker: If you play 3 hands of poker and you haven’t figured out who the pigeon is, LEAVE! You’re the pigeon. You have to find out who the eel is before you can take any action.
Smoke ‘em out: You have to find the eel first. Use some of our “Good to Great Questions” as a way to find out who has the least to gain or the most to lose inside of the whale and there is a good chance he or she is your eel.
Here are some strategies:
1) Co-Op. Take their ideas and bake them into your solution. Give the credit liberally and frequently to your eel as the source of the great changes. You are working on this being their idea.
2) Pair them up. Find the person in your organization who speaks the eel’s language. Maybe they match each other in education, age or style, which creates the friendly link for back-channel dialogue to turn them, or at least neutralizes the negative.
3) Containment. This is a combination of conceding all of this person’s small issues and points and then turning the conversation to the resolution of the bigger issues. You have to limit the scope of influence on your deal to items that are contained rather than allowing them to fester into deal-killers.
4) Find them another bone. Sometimes a curmudgeon wears out their welcome and their interest on a deal. Your job is to have enough knowledge about the company and the issues to re-focus the eel on another part of the world that is not your deal.
If every deal has an eel—which, in my experience, is the case—we have to have strategies to neutralize its impact. What are some of the strategies you are using?
One strategy that I’ve seen NOT work is an attempt to discredit the eel in the eyes of his or her peers.
Even though it’s tempting to kvetch with his or her peers, and they will often comiserate. You might thinkg you are getting traction at first (eels are often very annoying to their co-workers too) and you think…”hey this is working; I bet they fire Edward the Eel any minute!”….then BAM! Your champion/confidante is on the outs (figuratively or literally) and Edward the Eel has the scepter and the orb (that would figuratively).
When the cockroaches rule the earth, eels will rule the seas — so don’t think you can eradicate them directly. : )
1Jennifer – I love your strategic use of the word “kvetch,” but not nearly as much as I love “Edward the Eel.” Well done!
2Behind all of the seeming irrationality of eels, there are often very pragmatic and self-interested reasons for their dissent…or at least this is a very solution-minded way to take on the eels’ threat to the new biz success. I believe the best way to deal with substantive eels is to go with your approach to baking their issue into the solution. This might translate into dramatically repositioning the solution you offer.
Another way to describe this phenomena is the term LOCK-IN, used in the book, Create Marketplace Disruption: How to Stay Ahead of the Competition by Adam Hartung. Hartung looks at successful and unsuccessful attempts to sell superior solutions to prospects, and the process of getting clear about what locks them into their current ways of doing business. He demonstrates that solving for the Lock In, rather that selling benefits, is ultimately what succeeds. I think our eels are a personification (bestialization?) of the same.
http://www.amazon.com/Create-Marketplace-Disruption-Ahead-Competition/dp/0132343916/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225202092&sr=1-8
3I agree with Kevin’s comment when the eel’s behavior is actually grounded in logic and simply represents a disparate and considered opinion. Then, yes, seek them out, learn from them, and adjust your game plan.
But sometimes (and I think this was in the original lyrics to “As Time Goes By”) an eel is just an eel….slippery, hiding in a dark crevasse, and waiting to bite the unsuspecting snorkeler in order to protect their turf.
I don’t know that you can always find a collaborative way through such people (or animals). Sometimes you just want to swim really fast back to shore and have a pina colada. (How far can we stretch this metaphor?)
4Good stuff…
But isn’t the old poker saying that if you can’t see the fish, it’s you. not the pigeon?
That would be more in keeping with Whale Hunting and Eels too.
Ian
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