How a Sponsoring Executive of Action Centric (Fire) Persona and Calm and Stable Persona (Earth) will engage with others.
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Sponsoring Executive
An executive sponsor is a person in the management or an executive team responsible for driving the outcome of a proposed solution to resolve a business problem. In business-to-business sales, an executive sponsor can be on either side, at the buyer's or the seller's end.
At the buyer's end, it is primarily someone who has a keen interest in resolving a business problem or is a decision-maker and strongly influences the outcome of a sales transaction.
At the seller's end, it is primarily someone keen on growing the business by investing capital and resources.
Following are the key responsibilities of an executive sponsor at the buyer's end:
• Prepare and own the business case
• Engage and work with other sponsors and stakeholders in positioning and selling the business case internally and externally with suppliers
• Recommend or assist in the go-to-market approach
• Govern the communication with stakeholders
• Govern the risks and the outcome of the business case
Let us explore how a sponsoring executive at the buyer's end engages with the internal and external stakeholders by applying the elemental attributes learned in previous sections.
Fire – Action
Sponsoring Executive
• Business Case Preparation
o they are seeking a futuristic and innovative roadmap or a solution, preferably for short and mid-term
o a lot of data points are provided for analysis and problem definition
o budget allocation will be generous and is eager to allocate work
• Go to Market Approach
o fond of an audience and connecting with higher authorities means they employ a top-down strategy
o being time-consuming, a mechanism like RFP is least appealing
o they reach out to innovative and agile (swift in delivery) suppliers, or internal teams for selling the business case
• Positioning
o growth-oriented – being passionate for innovation and driven by future trends with the intent of growing the business, their initiatives are positioned as growth-oriented
• Engagement
o being open and honest, they interact with honesty and transparency, loses cool if the opposite side is not transparent
o the sharpness of fire is reflected in their sharpshooting style of conversation, and they have no hidden agenda
o they are competitive and use charm to impress upon stakeholders
• Communication
o timely, quick and action-oriented
o they lack depth in conversation, like to take control of the conversation
o they use data-driven insights and visuals to communicate
• Governance
o they exert pressure on stakeholders by repeatedly chasing activity progress
o they seek action and quick wins
o they are tolerant and considerate but will have failures or lapses in execution provided the information for the root cause is shared transparently
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