Latest / Closing the Deal with Fexingo: Sales, Negotiation, and Revenue Conversations for Operators / How a Sales Rep Won a Deal by Mapping the Buying Committee
Transcript
- Lucas: Alright, so let's talk about something that sounds almost too simple on paper but separates reps who close consistently from reps who lose deals they thought were locked. Luna: I'm ready. What's the move? Lucas: Mapping the buying committee before the first formal meeting. Not during the evaluation, not after you've already pitched — before. A rep named Sarah at a mid-market SaaS company did this and it changed how she approaches every deal now. Luna: Walk me through it. How early are we talking? Lucas: The moment she gets a qualified lead — someone who says 'we're interested' — she doesn't book the demo yet. She asks for the list of people who'd be involved in the decision. And she doesn't take 'it's just me' for an answer. She digs. Luna: And people actually give that up? Lucas: Most do, if you frame it right. Her line is: 'To make sure I'm not wasting anyone's time, could you share who else typically weighs in on these decisions? I'd love to understand their priorities upfront.' That's it. Luna: Okay, that's low-pressure. And then what? Lucas: She maps each person by three dimensions: their role, their likely stance — champion, neutral, or skeptic — and their primary metric. For a CFO, it's ROI timeline. For a VP of Engineering, it's integration complexity. For a user, it's ease of use. Luna: So she's essentially pre-building her objection list. Lucas: Exactly. In one deal, she identified seven stakeholders. Two were skeptics — the CFO and the head of IT. The CFO was worried about implementation downtime. The IT head was worried about security compliance. She addressed both in her first slide deck. Luna: And the champion didn't even know those were concerns yet. Lucas: Right. The champion was the VP of Sales, who just wanted the tool live. Sarah's mapping let her preempt objections that would have surfaced three meetings later. The deal closed in five weeks versus the typical eleven. Luna: Five weeks is huge. Do you know the deal size? Lucas: It was a hundred and eighty thousand dollars annual contract value. That's a big number for a mid-market SaaS company. And she said she'd lost a similar deal six months earlier because she only talked to the champion and assumed everyone else was on board. Luna: So the lesson is: don't assume alignment just because one person is enthusiastic. Lucas: Exactly. And there's a more tactical layer. She'd also schedule a fifteen-minute pre-brief with the most junior person on the committee — the one who might not speak up in group meetings. That person often knows the real operational pain. Luna: That's smart. The junior person is usually the one who actually uses the tool daily. Lucas: And they're less guarded. In that deal, the junior buyer told Sarah that the CFO had been burned by a previous vendor that promised a thirty-day implementation and took ninety. So Sarah came prepared with a reference call from a client who had a similar migration. Luna: So she turned a potential landmine into a proof point. Lucas: Exactly. And I think there's a broader point here: mapping the committee isn't just about knowing names. It's about understanding the political landscape. Every buying committee has a hidden hierarchy of influence. Luna: Meaning the person with the title 'decision-maker' isn't always the one who actually decides. Lucas: Right. Sarah told me that in one deal, the Director of Engineering had veto power even though the VP of Product was the formal buyer. She wouldn't have known that if she hadn't asked the junior person who really called the shots. Luna: So what's the one question she uses to uncover that? Lucas: She asks: 'If everyone agreed on the solution except one person, whose objection would kill the deal?' That's the veto player. And then she makes sure that person gets a tailored briefing early. Luna: That is gold. I'm writing that down. Lucas: The other move she makes is creating a 'stakeholder map' — literally a sheet of paper with names, roles, and a green yellow red rating for each person's support. She updates it after every interaction. Luna: And she shares that map with her champion? Lucas: Yes, and that's key. She'll say to the champion: 'I've got the CFO as yellow — concerned about implementation time. Is that accurate? And do you have any insight on what would move them to green?' That turns the champion into a co-seller. Luna: So the champion isn't just an internal advocate; they're actively helping you navigate internal politics. Lucas: Exactly. And the champion often has info the rep would never get otherwise. In one case, the champion told Sarah that the IT head was personally friends with a competitor's sales rep. That changed how she positioned the technical comparison. Luna: Wow. So instead of bashing the competitor, she had to be more nuanced. Lucas: Right. She focused on her product's unique strengths rather than attacking the competitor's weaknesses. She also made sure the IT head got a hands-on sandbox trial, which the competitor hadn't offered. Luna: That's a smart tactical adjustment. Let me ask you this — what if the buyer refuses to share the committee list? Some buyers are territorial. Lucas: That happens. Sarah's fallback is to ask for a brief 'discovery call' with anyone who will be evaluating the solution. She frames it as: 'I want to make sure I answer questions that matter to each person, so I don't waste the whole group's time in the demo.' Most people agree to that. Luna: And if they still say no? Lucas: She treats it as a red flag. If one person is gatekeeping access, it often means they're insecure about their own influence, or they plan to make a unilateral decision. Either way, it's a risk she flags early. Luna: So mapping isn't just a tactic; it's also a qualification tool. Lucas: Exactly. If a stakeholder refuses to let you talk to others, that's useful information. It might mean the deal is less real than it seems. Luna: I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier — the pre-brief with the junior person. How does she get that meeting without offending the main contact? Lucas: She says: 'I'd love to do a quick fifteen-minute call with the person who would be the primary user day to day, just to understand their workflow. That way, when we demo, I can show how we fit their actual process.' It's hard to say no to that. Luna: And then she uses that call to ask about the real pain points and the hidden politics. Lucas: Right. And she always thanks the junior person and sends a summary to the champion, so the champion sees the value of including them. That builds trust. Luna: So the whole approach is really about information asymmetry — you want to know more about them than they know about you. Lucas: Exactly. And the beautiful thing is, most reps don't do this. They show up, they pitch, they follow up. Sarah's approach costs her an extra hour or two upfront and saves weeks of backtracking. Luna: I think this is one of those episodes where I'm going to send the transcript to a few sales friends. Lucas: Good. And on that note — you know, we put these episodes together every week, and we deliberately keep them free of ads. No sponsors, no mid-roll interruptions. If you find these conversations useful in your work, and you want to support that choice, there's a link: buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a simple way to say this matters to you. Luna: Yeah, it's a small thing that keeps us doing what we do. And we genuinely appreciate it. Lucas: Alright, back to the map. One more tactic Sarah uses: after the deal closes, she does a quick retrospective with each stakeholder and asks who else should have been included. That feedback loops into her next deal. Luna: So she's constantly refining her map. Lucas: Exactly. She told me that in one post-close call, the VP of Marketing said, 'Oh, you should have looped in the demand gen lead earlier — she's the one who actually manages the vendor relationships.' Sarah added that role to her template for future deals. Luna: So the map becomes a living document, not a one-time exercise. Lucas: Right. And over time, she's built a pretty comprehensive map of typical buying committees for each persona she sells to. For a VP of Sales, it's usually six to eight people. For a VP of Marketing, it's different. She knows the patterns now. Luna: That's a competitive advantage. If you know who will be at the table before your competitor even knows the deal exists, you're already ahead. Lucas: Exactly. And that's really the takeaway. You don't need to be a natural negotiator. You just need to be methodical about who's in the room and what they care about. Luna: Alright, I'm definitely trying this on my next outreach. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. And thanks to everyone listening. We'll be back with another episode soon.