Sales EQ

17The Five Stakeholders You Meet in a Deal

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

—Jim Rohn

Last summer we decided to run a campaign to generate more buys from advertising agencies on the Sales Gravy Jobs engine. There were 50 key contacts we wanted to reach. The campaign would focus on creating awareness of the advancements we'd made with our mobile job board and apps.

The idea for this campaign originated with me during a marketing brainstorming session. Our agency account manager, Brooke, liked the idea, so I asked her to research options for a promotional item we might send by mail along with a brochure highlighting the improved mobile job board experience.

Brooke searched online for options. She found a few items she liked and contacted the companies for prices and order minimums. Then she took those ideas to our marketing manager, Dawn, who contacted Christy, an account manager at a promotional company Dawn had worked with in the past.

Christy went to work on Brooke's ideas and sent over mock-ups. Dawn took them to our CFO, Carrie, who made sure the ideas fit into our budget and that we were getting a fair price. Dawn advocated for using Christy (even though her price was more expensive than the other vendors' prices). Carrie reviewed the proposals and narrowed them down to three.

Finally, Brooke, Dawn, and Carrie came to me with their recommendations. Dawn continued to advocate for Christy. Carrie concurred since Christy seemed more responsive ...