Tailoring Conversations for Stakeholders
Persuasion Power
TrailblazerDX 2022 included a session, “Sell Your Solution To Stakeholders,” presented by Marc Braga and Susannah St-Germain from Salesforce Architect Relations. They focused on executive stakeholders who have limited time to evaluate a solution. It’s up to the architect or business analyst to make the most of that time by optimizing their benefits pitch for the executive audience.
Stakeholder Executive Types
The presentation grouped executive stakeholders into four diverse, yet common categories.
| Category | Scope | Domain(s) |
|---|---|---|
| C-suite Executive | Strategic | All |
| Department Head | Tactical | Department |
| IT Leader | Tactical | Information Technology |
| SMB Executive | Strategic/ Tactical | Several or all |
Marc and Susannah described each category - stakeholder interests, what to talk about, and how to show them. The sections below include these characteristics for each type, plus what to understand before a meeting with the stakeholder.
C-Suite Executive
C-Suite executives plan and oversee strategic initiatives for large organizations. For example, a Chief Marketing Officer ensures that Salesforce Marketing Cloud customizations fulfill the organization’s high-level marketing needs.
Interests: Leadership, solution’s return on investment (ROI), vision, innovation, and roadmap.
What to understand: Corporate goals and the solution’s role in achieving them, including ROI.
Talk about: The big picture vision with emphasis on the bottom line
Show: Business capability map, long-term solution roadmap
Department Head
A department head runs a specific function of the business, also known as a domain. His or her team members will use the solution.
Interests: Solution’s functional fit, extensibility, usability, and time to value.
What to understand: Department objectives, processes, and domain terminology.
Talk about: How technology will benefit their department.
Show: Department’s process diagrams
IT Leader
The information technology leader orchestrates solutions to achieve company goals with minimal risk.
Interests: Alignment with IT strategy, development tools, implementation & maintenance, architecture & integration.
What to understand: Incumbent systems replaced by the solution, systems to integrate, staff strengths and weaknesses.
Talk about: Solution technology and how it plays to the strengths of the IT team
Show: System landscape, implementation roadmap
Small to Medium Business Executive
A small to medium business (SMB) executive can deal with tactical business operations while devoting some attention to strategy. He or she needs technology to leverage staff productivity and customer benefits as much as possible.
Interests: Solution benefits, features, usability, flexibility, extensibility, cost, and time to value.
What to understand: Business goals, processes, and terminology.
Talk about: Functionality and how to use it.
Show: Solution demonstration, phased roadmap.
A Simple Specific Summary
“Sell Your Solution To Stakeholders” finished with a conversation closing principle:
Summarize with a simple, meaningful fact + specific motivation
For example, show how:
A Chief Marketing Officer can build brand equity with a custom Marketing Cloud.
A Sales Manager can automate administrative tasks, giving representatives more time and energy to sell.
An IT Leader’s team can accomplish more with no-code/low-code tools.
An SMB executive can leverage information technology to do more with less.
Executive stakeholders appreciate business analysts and architects respecting their time and attention by understanding what they need and summarizing how a solution will improve their business.
Tailor executive stakeholder conversations to take the shortest path to your solution’s value.