One of the most common reasons why many B2B sales opportunities get derailed is because their sales teams fail to identify all the key stakeholders. In fact, some B2B companies are becoming more reliant on a few regular contacts and fail to connect with other stakeholders who could enable them to maximize their opportunities.
One of the best ways to make sure that B2B sales teams can get buy-in from all the key players is stakeholder mapping. Understanding a project’s stakeholders is vital for a sales project’s success. Stakeholder analysis mapping is one effective way sales managers can better learn about the stakeholders. In this blog, you will learn about stakeholder mapping and why it’s important in the B2B industry.
What is Stakeholder Mapping?
Stakeholder mapping is a process of finding out the key individuals who are affected by the upcoming sale, they could be the users, their managers, the influenzers, the final decision-makers, management, or the finance teams who sign off on a project. The process involves recognizing all the individuals who have an interest in the project outcome. A project stakeholder can be one individual or multiple individuals as in the case of large sales projects.
Once all the project stakeholders are determined, the project manager must categorize them, according to different levels of engagement. Mapping of the stakeholder is done according to the following:
- Role in the decision process
Is their main role one of an economic buyer, business sponsor, a technical buyer, one of the other key contributors, a negotiator, an influence, or merely an information gatherer?
- Influence over the final decision
Are they the dominant influence and can make or break the project or do they have a strong, average, weak, or non-existent influence over the final decision?
- Attitude towards your company
Are they a full-on champion for your cause, or are they positive, neutral, negative, or a potential blocker?
- Top business priority
What is their most important business priority when it comes to this sales project? How will they and their department benefit from your solution?
- Key decision factor
What is the single most essential factor influencing their decision when it comes to this particular sales project? And how does each individual stakeholder’s key decision factor relate to that of their colleagues?
A sales manager should focus on satisfying the expectations of the stakeholders who have a high level of influence relating to the project. Moreover, a stakeholder mapping tool is a visual exercise. B2B companies can manually map the stakeholders or use software to perform the action. Once they have fully mapped the stakeholders, companies should create an action plan on how to engage with them.
The Importance of Stakeholder Mapping
Now that you know what stakeholder mapping is, let’s find out why it’s important to your business. Here are some pointers about its importance in the B2B world:
- A stakeholder analysis tool is essential for the success of a sales project. The fact is that most sales projects involve stakeholders. When you have mapped the stakeholders, it will help in better managing their expectations.
- Engaging with key stakeholders will also help sales teams get invaluable insights. The insights that the stakeholders share regarding the sales project will later prove invaluable to a successful project outcome.
- Actively engaging with the stakeholders will result in an increased perception of success. In fact, many stakeholders whose expectations are micro-managed through stakeholder mapping are far likely to perceive the sales project as a success.
If you’re interested in investing in stakeholder mapping, Markable Solutions is here to help. We provide stakeholder mapping techniques fit for hi-tech companies, SMEs, and other B2B companies around the world. So what are you waiting for? Call us now!
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