May 28, 2025 • 25 mins
Your champion just went silent. That $100K deal you've been forecasting is officially dead, killed by someone in a completely different department you never knew existed.
In this episode of AI-Powered Seller, Jake Dunlap reveals how to use AI for sales stakeholder mapping to identify the TRUE power dynamics in any organization before your deal gets derailed by internal politics.
Most B2B sellers focus on organizational hierarchy when they should be mapping the "powerarchy", the real influence networks that determine whether enterprise deals live or die. Jake demonstrates his exact AI sales prompt that identifies ghost stakeholders, maps informal approval processes, and gives you tactical strategies to navigate complex organizational politics in B2B sales.
This sales AI episode covers:
- Why traditional B2B stakeholder mapping fails in today's complex buying environment
- The difference between your sales champion and THE decision maker (and why it matters for deal closing)
- How to identify the "shadow CIO" and other hidden decision makers using AI
- Jake's complete AI framework for political deal analysis and sales strategy
- Specific discovery questions to ask different stakeholders based on their motivations
- Warning signs your enterprise deal is about to be torpedoed by internal dynamics
Using a live demonstration with ChatGPT for sales, Jake walks through analyzing a fictional deal scenario, watch how AI identifies informal power structures, predicts potential deal blockers, and provides actionable next steps to win the political game in enterprise sales.
Every enterprise sales rep and mid-market seller needs to be running this AI sales process on every deal.
📍 Chapters
00:00 Your Sales Champion Went Silent - Here's Why
02:30 Why Traditional B2B Stakeholder Mapping Fails
05:15 Hierarchy vs Powerarchy: Understanding Real Sales Influence
08:45 Live AI Political Analysis for Sales Deals
15:20 Tactical Next Steps and Enterprise Deal Warning Signs
18:30 How to Future-Proof Against Political Sales Landmines
New episodes drop every other Wednesday @ 8 AM CT / 9 AM ET
►Listen and subscribe on all streaming platforms: https://open.spotify.com/show/2YSdOae5YyHNfy6UQd7iIM
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►Connect with Jake: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakedunlap/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Your champion just went silent.
That $100K deal that youforecasted probably a couple of
times in the last month isofficially dead, and it wasn't
killed by the group you weretalking to.
It was put to pasture bysomeone in a completely
different group that you nevereven knew.
(00:21):
So today I'm gonna talk to youabout how AI can help you to map
the true power dynamics in anyorganization before your deal
gets derailed.
How many of you out there havegot an email or a call it's like
, hey, sorry, this thinghappened.
You're like, wait, wait, I cantalk to that person, et cetera.
(00:44):
Well, the problem is too manysellers right now and just in
general, have always been toofocused on the hierarchy.
The reality is, every deal myfriends has a powerarchy and
both of them are important toknow.
And especially if you've beenfollowing along with the pod,
you know we've done episodesabout, you know, mapping the
(01:05):
hierarchy, etc.
But in today's episode, number13, I am going to talk about how
to utilize ai to never lose adeal to internal bureaucracy or
politics ever again.
I really I can't like.
As we were putting this episodetogether, I feel like this is
like the missing piece.
(01:25):
You know, I see there's so manytools out there today.
They're like well, did Johnnyfollow Medic or MedPick?
And it's like oh, my gosh, lookat, johnny followed MedPick,
but guess what?
Medpick and these other gong,these other tools, guess what
they don't listen for.
They can't comprehend theconcept of power dynamics, right
(01:46):
?
And you know today's day andage, there are so many people
involved in deals.
My gosh, you know I've seen 11in like a small company, at
least 11 people involved.
So in today's day and age, youknow, we have to try to map this
and to think two or three stepsahead.
And so, throughout today'sepisode and make sure you kind
(02:09):
of tune in through the end, ifyou are listening right now,
we're going to have a greatvisual on YouTube.
You all know this, though youknow I do a pretty good job of
walking through what we're goingto cover.
So, if you're just listeningamazing, thank you for tuning in
.
If you are watching right now,make sure to subscribe to the
channel, as I'm going to jumpinto how to make sure you never
(02:31):
lose a deal to internal politicsagain, and I'm talking internal
to prospects company.
Ooh, actually that's not a badidea.
We can actually do an internal,internal politics one where how
to make sure you can getapprovals from all the different
groups for the you know, thestuff that you want to pull as a
seller.
Uh, maybe that'll be a futureepisode, um, but, like I said, I
think today's episode is justgoing to be another one of those
(02:53):
copy and pasters where we'vegot the team has built out one
of the most insane prompts thatI have seen in terms of like
breadth and depth, and, andwe're also going to be
converting this into a customGPT as well too.
So, if you're somebody whoalready subscribes to our custom
GPTs, those are continuing toget better.
So we're coming up with a name.
I think it's going to be likeyou know, political analyzer
(03:16):
internally, prospect, internalpolitics analyzer, something
like that.
Uh, but it should be a lot offun.
So make sure to stay tuned andI'm going to walk you through
the exact prompt that is goingto make sure you never lose that
big deal again to internalstakeholders.
So let's jump into this.
Okay, let's talk about whytraditional stakeholder mapping
(03:36):
fails, and I'll tell you there'sa couple of reasons.
Over time and I'm sure all ofyou can attest to this over the
last I mean, I've been in B2Bsales for like 20 years.
So, sir, I'm just going to sayover the last 20 years, because
that's my experience it used tobe, I kid you not, I'm going
back.
I was a sales rep at a companyin the job space.
(03:57):
This is probably 2006, 2007.
I could get a CEO or VP of HRon the phone and I could close I
kid you not Like on the secondcall.
I could close on the call likea 15 to 30K deal sometimes.
And you know, it was really thisidea that people used to make a
(04:19):
lot more decisions on their ownup high People didn't use to
consult 55 people, and so whythe traditional stakeholder
mapping is failing is that thereare so many people now that
have influence, so manyexecutives, so many people are
scared to make decisions today.
So what they do is they get ina room with a bunch of people
(04:41):
and they look around.
They say, well, what do youthink?
What do you think?
And they're like hoping to Godthat there's consensus here.
And then you can have this oneperson who's like two levels
below the economic buyer orchampion or the decision maker,
and they're like, look, I justdon't think this is going to
work.
We tried to implement this toolbefore blah, blah, blah, it
didn't work.
I think this is going to be thesame.
(05:01):
And then that person is theloudest voice and your deal gets
shot down.
Okay, and what I think AI isuniquely amazing at is is it can
kind of map out the like hey,this is actually how things work
at a company based on a productthat you might sell.
(05:21):
You need to make sure that youtalk to these people as well,
too, and I think, look,sometimes in sales we are taught
, you know, less meetings, youknow, is better.
What can we do digitally?
And look, as you know me, I'mall about providing digital
experiences for people, but Ialso need to make sure I'm
providing digital experiencesdifferently to different types
(05:41):
of stakeholders.
And so, politically, you know,to pacify this person, I need to
talk to them about this, and topacify this person, I need to
talk to them about this.
Right, and when you combine inyour call transcripts, you
combine in email copy, youcombine all those things
together plus a seller's, youknow, experience, we've got some
(06:06):
really cool signals that we cantry to map to.
That will actually help you toreveal kind of true
organizational power dynamics.
And so here, in about 10 minutes, I'm going to walk you through
you know the prompt and I'mgoing to walk you through
exactly how to make sure thatthese things you know don't you
don't lose a deal again becauseof this.
And what I want you to thinkabout is look, your champion
(06:29):
isn't your champion and thedecision maker that you've been
pitching to is not your decisionmaker.
My friends, every deal intoday's day and age has multiple
people and multiple championsthat might be peers.
They have multiple peoplewithin the inner circle that can
say yes or no, and so justlooking at an org chart is a
(06:49):
100% recipe for losing moredeals.
You need to make sure, ifyou're talking to the end user
team, you have at least one ortwo people you talk to regularly
.
If you are talking to the ROI orthe business team if you wonder
what I'm talking about, this isour framework called intent.
Hopefully you are talking tothe ROI or the business team.
If you wonder what I'm talkingabout, this is our framework
called Intent.
Hopefully you follow along onInnovative Seller If you don't
check it out on YouTube.
(07:10):
But Intent talks about thisconcept of teams.
So you've got your end userteam and you've got your buying
or ROI team, and so you need tomake sure, in today's day and
age, you have multiplerelationships.
You cannot be single-threaded.
I mean, that's a recipe fordisaster.
So what can we do to try tomitigate some of this?
(07:33):
Okay, and I'm going to talk.
I'm going to go through kind ofthree or four key areas here.
Yeah, the first is I'm going totalk about the concept of a
champion, and I have said somerelatively controversial things
about the whole idea of achampion over the years.
I love champions.
I want to be very clear.
I've had many, many deals whereI had a champion who literally
did the work for me and it wasawesome, it made my life way
(07:55):
easier.
But look, as salespeople, wecan't rely on having only
champions to close deals.
We have to be our biggestchampion.
And the big issue that I seewith a lot of you know, upper,
smb, mid-market enterprisesellers is they look at the
process through the lens thatthe champion tells them is the
(08:15):
process.
Guys, most champion, most ofthe people you're dealing with
are probably, you know, likemid-level on the end user team.
That's kind of usually wherethat champion bucket come from.
They're not used to buyingthings, they're not used to
collaborating.
They're like they might buy onething a year, one thing every
few years, and so they'retelling you what they think the
(08:35):
process is, but they don'treally know right, and they
really only interact or knowtheir own kind of peer group.
They don't interact with thisother department or this other
sub department within theirdepartment that much and they
don't really know Jill, jill infinance or whoever right.
And so because we don'tunderstand the actual
(08:56):
decision-making process, becauseagain we're taking one person's
opinion, you know we lose deals, right, that stakeholder map of
this goes to this and then thisgoes to this.
It just falls apart.
So now, my friends, let's enterthe world of AI.
I have a little coffee, okay,so let's talk about what AI can
(09:16):
do.
First, email communication.
It's interesting I see a lot offocus around the call.
I want you all to understandthat most of these companies are
not able actually to judge truesentiment.
What these companies areactually doing on the call is
looking at words and they'rebunching words together and
they're saying these companiesare actually doing on the call
is looking at words and they'rebunching words together and
(09:38):
they're saying these words aretypically positive, these words
are typically negative.
It's very much AI and machinelearning, not generative AI.
On the email side.
What these tools can do isquickly help you to see the
unsaid things.
This was a shorter reply, jake.
You had six replies here.
They were all short.
At no point did they loopanybody in All of those types of
(10:01):
nuances.
The other thing that I reallylike about AI is and whenever we
go through the prompt here in asecond is it also will say, hey
, who hasn't been involved thatyou should probably think about
talking to, and I really lovethat application.
You know, the ability to say,here's who you know, here's kind
of who I've been talking to,like what am I missing, etc.
(10:23):
I think that's a big one as apart of it, and I think, too,
what the other thing you can dois pick up, maybe on some
subtleties between you know,maybe internal groups
disagreeing.
You know maybe a subtlety thatwas mentioned by this department
.
That's really important.
And so, as you know, in termsof mapping the political
dynamics, when I put togetherthe proposal, I want to make
(10:46):
sure that I, you know, havethose nuances in my proposal.
So then this person who could,you know, shoot the deal down,
is happy.
So all those things go reallyinto it.
And so how do we actuallyimplement this?
Okay, this prompt that I'mabout to.
If you're watching on YouTube,we're getting ready to fire it
(11:07):
up.
If you're listening along,thank you again, as usual.
If you're enjoying what youhear so far, make sure it does a
lot.
If you guys, you know, take acouple of seconds to subscribe
on your you know favorite eitherpodcast or your favorite you
know medium that you'relistening, or you know,
obviously, if you're watchingthis on YouTube or LinkedIn, you
know, please, please, you know,always helps give it a like,
(11:29):
share it with your network aswell.
We always appreciate thosethings.
Subscribe to the channel.
You know the things to do, sowe're going to get into the
implementation.
So what generative AI is able todo better than any technology
we've ever possessed is reallysynthesizing and taking in a
whole bunch of unstructured dataand making very smart
correlations between things, orat least, maybe not correlations
(11:51):
or causations, but inferencestoward things might be a better
way to think about it.
It can also, over time, italready will start to learn your
map, right?
So those of you if you're usingChatGPT, I'm going to show you
the example in ChatGPT today.
Chatgpt memory is a reallygreat thing.
(12:13):
Also, this is more of a pro tip, I'll tell you Look, chatgpt
memory messes up a lot and youneed to prune it at least once a
month.
So the quick way that you cando that, the little pro tip, is
just ask chat GPT what it knowsabout you.
Just hey, chat GPT, what haveyou been storing about me?
And let's do a quick cleansesession that I can get rid of
anything that's noise.
So you need to run that littlememory I'll call it a memory
(12:36):
cleanse about every month atleast as a part of that.
So, again, like, over time,it's going to start to
understand the typical peoplethat need to be involved, etc.
And it can really create thiskind of deal risk assessment,
right, based on politicalfactors, knowing the nuances of
hey, cios typically care aboutthis thing.
You better watch out, johnny,because you're going to be in
(12:58):
trouble as a part of this.
So, my friends, are you ready?
Okay, it is time in the showwhere we are going to get into
the AI details of how is AIgoing to actually help you with
this, and I think this.
You know we do a lot of theseepisodes and I think everyone
has value.
This one, I think, is one thatI you know, I'm I really hope
(13:20):
every enterprise seller andmid-market sellers like heck,
yeah, I'm going to use thisthing like crazy, uh, as a part
of this, so let's jump into ithere, all right.
So here we are my friends, sowe have this is um, all right.
So here we are my friends, sowe have.
This is ChatGPT03.
For those of you who know, I'ma pretty big ChatGPT03.
(13:45):
And especially with deepresearch.
I did not turn on deep researchfor this one, but I'm going to
walk you through the promptright now.
I took out and if you allremember from the episode last
week or the week before maybe Itake out sometimes some of the
things that would you know,expose calls that I've had.
But in the actual link that wewill provide, you will get the
full prompt that prompts you toupload a call transcript, upload
(14:06):
a few emails, etc.
For those of you, the nextquestion I'm sure a lot of you,
but Jake, can I?
Is this okay?
Is this allowed?
Look, a really easy thing youcan do is say, hey, replace the
company name, replace theperson's name.
Scenarios are scenarios.
We're really just looking forthe scenario here.
It's not really companyspecific, you know.
Also, if you didn't know this,if you have a ChatGPT Teams
(14:29):
account or an enterprise account, no information is shared back
with the model and I think eventhe paid Premier account it's
the same.
I'll have to have the team dosome check on the show notes
with that.
So here's what we've got.
Okay, I want you to analyze sohere's the prompt.
I want you to analyze allavailable data to map the
internal politics anddecision-making dynamics.
Okay, act as an expertorganizational psychologist
(14:54):
specializing in B2B buyingcommittees, with deep knowledge
of corporate power structures.
Right here, guys, this is whereso for those of you listening
along, there's a little blankspot.
This is where the prompt thatyou will see.
If you go to the show notes onthe podcast or if you go to the
link in the YouTube comments,you'll see kind of the
additional details which are,like you know, upload the
(15:16):
transcript, emails, additionalcontext.
All I said here is I said I havea deal, that I'm worried the IT
team will block us.
We met with a VP of digitalstrategy and they are in, but
not sure who else should belooped in.
I work at a company.
I use this company, yoda, andselling to a mid market IT brand
.
This is a fake.
(15:36):
I also said this is a fakescenario, so don't commit it to
memory.
As a part of this, I said, okay,now let's get weird.
All right, stakeholder powermap.
Identify all known stakeholders, right?
So it's going to say, okay fora company like this.
Who do they sell to?
Who's probably involved?
Assess their likely influencelevel, detect informal power
(15:58):
dynamics not visible in orgcharts.
Map reporting relationships.
Identify missing stakeholders,flag potential blockers or ghost
stakeholders.
Guys, I mean this is betterthan I mean.
Look as someone who's managedhundreds, if not thousands, of
sales reps.
I mean, god, it would take meto give a breakdown like this to
a rep like an hour, maybe evenmore, and we'd have to go back
(16:20):
and forth, back and forth.
The next thing I said is let'slet's analyze their decision
process.
So not just who is thestakeholder power map, what's
the decision process right?
What's the actual versateddecision-making right?
We talked about that, you know,hey, the champion keeps saying
this.
But what are they maybe missing?
Identify approval gates.
Map the flow of information,highlight organizational
(16:41):
constraints impacting it andnote previous purchasing
patterns if available.
So again, this goes back towhat did I say?
The reason that a lot of peoplemight lose deals is they
believe the one process.
Okay, they believe a processthey're told from somebody who's
just not used to buying things.
Right Next up.
We ask it to do a stakeholdermotivation assessment.
(17:02):
We say analyze individualpriorities, identify potential
conflicts this is where yourcall recordings can really be
helpful.
This is a really good one.
Detect career considerationsaffecting the decision Right,
you know, if you're selling aproject it's a few million bucks
, or even if it's less than that, a smaller company someone's
gonna have to put their neck onthe line for you, uh-oh.
(17:24):
Well, what if I'm like, kind ofbought in but not all the way
bought in?
That's a real thing.
Coalition analysis right, whatare the natural alliances among
stakeholders?
Political risk assessment,flagged deals, signs of
political complexity Again, yourcall scripts will help with
that.
Communication network analysis.
Map how the information flows,identify gaps, et cetera.
(17:46):
Okay, and then we tell itreally clearly how we want the
data to lay out.
Okay, and now, now guys watchwhat happens, okay.
So again, I'm work at thiscompany, I've been working with
digital.
I'm worried it.
Just to summarize again, it isgoing to be a blocker.
I need to make sure, as I'mworking, this deal these guys
(18:06):
don't have.
This doesn't happen.
So the first thing we ask itfor it's thought for a whopping
15 seconds.
If I had turned on deepresearch, it might've been even
a little bigger.
Executive summary what are thefive fast truths?
The IT architecture boardequals the ultimate gatekeeper,
even when budget sits.
In digital strategy, nothingships without an architecture
(18:27):
security sign-off.
Your VP champion controlsvision, not the keys Shadow CIO.
Dynamic Mid-market tech brandsoften have a long-tenured
director manager who quietlydictates stack standards and
kills non-fit Ooh okay.
Security performance, siteperformance ROI resonates, but
cyber risk avoidance is anon-negotiable right.
(18:50):
Yoda solves for siteperformance.
This calls out hey, don't justfocus on that.
Focus on something else tooProcurement.
I love it.
It even said we'll flex late.
It says procurement will flexlate.
Finance is under costcontainment orders.
They push anythinginfrastructure adjacent through
the RFP light.
If you're not multi-threaded.
(19:10):
When they enter, price willbecome a dominant narrative.
Digital revenue KPI equalsleverage point.
Ecom lead gen owners needfaster pages yesterday to carry
revenue targets.
That can outrank IT in the ELTif mobilized into coalition.
So here it starts to map thestakeholder influence map.
Check this out, guys.
It goes through all thesedifferent job titles in IT.
(19:32):
It says what's their formalrole, what's their actual
influence?
This actual influence one isfilthy.
It's like, okay, the CFOcontroller low to medium
influence, but there's budgetoversight Medium to high.
Right there, they have the CIO.
Oh man, I love what it calledout here.
There, they have the CIO oh man, I love what it called out here
(19:55):
.
It says, hi, a kingmaker is.
This is the senior director ofenterprise architecture, the
shadow CIO and InfoSec the CISO.
So again, if you're a seller, Icannot tell you how many sellers
are like, yeah, yeah, it isinvolved.
It's like, no, no, no, no, no.
Who is involved in IT?
What are the roles?
Who needs to be involved as apart of this?
So again, I want you all tojust think about that as a
(20:18):
construct of what it's going tohelp you to do.
It's like you know what man wehave never talked to?
Security or enterprise ops man,these people are going to have
some influence.
It's like, hey, you haven'ttalked to these people?
Okay, right, your contact iscredible, but politically
they're mid-tier, they're mid.
I should be able to.
It's mid as a part of thatDecision process.
(20:40):
Reality Okay, boom, informal,there's going to be an informal
architectural review, a securityview and a procurement funnel.
How are you prepared for that?
Okay, so think about thosetypes of things, what that might
actually look like.
Stakeholder motivation map,risk tolerance low alignment,
(21:00):
neutral will follow board advice.
Ciso job preservation via zeroincidents.
So one of the columns here iscalled personal drivers and it
says what is a personal driverfor CISO Job preservation?
Minimize attack risk.
Right, the risk tolerance isvery low.
(21:22):
Right, architecture influence,create technical purity I love
that.
Call out, et cetera.
So here's your politicalstrategy recommendation.
Your optimal influence path isthis the VP of digital strategy
loop in the director of digitalexperience, the revenue owner,
(21:42):
jointly brief architecture leadbefore the security review and
position the CIO as executivesponsor, not evaluator.
And position a CIO as executivesponsor, not evaluator.
Package a revenue uplift pluszero risk architecture narrative
if you want to win this deal.
Risk mitigation pilot in acontrolled segment.
(22:02):
It offers that idea, otherpeople to multi-thread.
And then, last but certainlynot least, it gives you tactical
next steps.
It says here's some questionsthat you might want to ask Okay,
the architecture lead.
Which reference architecturesor cloud governance standards?
Must any performance tool alignwith Love that Revenue impact.
(22:22):
Co-host a revenue impactworkshop for digital experience
and VP.
You know, make them feel betterabout the ROI you can generate.
Vp.
Make them feel better about theROI you can generate.
Send the CISO a one-pagermapping Yoda to OWASP and ISO
27001 controls.
I do not know what that means.
What additional penetrationevidence would you need for an
approval pilot?
(22:43):
Then, number four verifythreshold for the.
Is there a competitive bid?
Try to loop in procurementearly, quietly it even says so
dope.
And last but not least, a gearexec level check-in with cio
after technical alignment.
Guys, I literally gave thisthing a prompt.
I told it absolutely nothingabout you know the nuances of
(23:03):
this deal.
I didn't upload the trialtranscripts, I didn't upload all
the emails, but I think you canreally clearly see this is a
freaking game changer Like.
This to me is just one of thoseprompts where it's like you
need to be doing this in everydeal.
Right, it talks about warningsigns.
You know if your architecturelead postpones the call, hidden
(23:24):
objection, security teamrequests a generic questionnaire
.
Only Procurement suddenlyescalates to RFP.
Digital experience disengages.
Right, and this is crazy.
The key insight, it says the keyinsight this deal is won or
lost in architecture andsecurity.
Treat them as co-buyers, notcompliance steps, and arm your
(23:44):
champion with revenue evidencestrong enough to outweigh IT's
risk bias.
Strong enough to outweigh IT'srisk bias.
My friends, like it really doesnot get any better than that.
Like that, like again, like meas a senior tenured sales leader
, like this is the type of stuffwhere I would you know again,
I'd have to spend hours studyingto even think through all these
(24:05):
scenarios.
And now here we are andliterally I have a bulletproof
political landscape map.
Guys, you got to be runningthis for every single deal, and
our team, we're going to turnthis into a custom GPT for sure,
political deal analyzer thatyou can just upload and it will
do it for you.
But in the meantime, borrow theprompt, as always.
(24:28):
So that is this week's episode,episode number 13 of the
AI-powered seller.
I really feel that this is oneof those episodes that you're
gonna win some deals on thisyear.
If you copy and paste what wejust put together, if you go
into every deal understandinghow to use AI to map politics,
(24:51):
you're gonna win deals.
You're going to win a lot ofdeals, and so make sure.
Hopefully this is helpful forall of you out there.
I know there's some goodinsights in there, so, as usual,
make sure to follow along.
You can follow along on YouTube.
I'm on LinkedIn very, veryactive as well, too.
If you're following there, makesure to subscribe to the
channel or follow on YouTube orLinkedIn, or like the video.
(25:11):
If you're on TikTok or IG Reels, and definitely if you're
liking the podcast.
Please, we love reviews.
If you don't mind leaving areview, that would be amazing as
well, and so that's what I goteveryone.
Episode 13, ai-powered seller.
Make sure, my friends, you areavoiding those political
landmines and you're going toclose a lot more deals.
Your champion just went silent.
That $100K deal that youforecasted probably a couple of
times in the last month isofficially dead, and it wasn't
killed by the group you weretalking to.
It was put to pasture bysomeone in a completely
different group that you nevereven knew.
(00:21):
So today I'm gonna talk to youabout how AI can help you to map
the true power dynamics in anyorganization before your deal
gets derailed.
How many of you out there havegot an email or a call it's like
, hey, sorry, this thinghappened.
You're like, wait, wait, I cantalk to that person, et cetera.
(00:44):
Well, the problem is too manysellers right now and just in
general, have always been toofocused on the hierarchy.
The reality is, every deal myfriends has a powerarchy and
both of them are important toknow.
And especially if you've beenfollowing along with the pod,
you know we've done episodesabout, you know, mapping the
(01:05):
hierarchy, etc.
But in today's episode, number13, I am going to talk about how
to utilize ai to never lose adeal to internal bureaucracy or
politics ever again.
I really I can't like.
As we were putting this episodetogether, I feel like this is
like the missing piece.
(01:25):
You know, I see there's so manytools out there today.
They're like well, did Johnnyfollow Medic or MedPick?
And it's like oh, my gosh, lookat, johnny followed MedPick,
but guess what?
Medpick and these other gong,these other tools, guess what
they don't listen for.
They can't comprehend theconcept of power dynamics, right
(01:46):
?
And you know today's day andage, there are so many people
involved in deals.
My gosh, you know I've seen 11in like a small company, at
least 11 people involved.
So in today's day and age, youknow, we have to try to map this
and to think two or three stepsahead.
And so, throughout today'sepisode and make sure you kind
(02:09):
of tune in through the end, ifyou are listening right now,
we're going to have a greatvisual on YouTube.
You all know this, though youknow I do a pretty good job of
walking through what we're goingto cover.
So, if you're just listeningamazing, thank you for tuning in
.
If you are watching right now,make sure to subscribe to the
channel, as I'm going to jumpinto how to make sure you never
(02:31):
lose a deal to internal politicsagain, and I'm talking internal
to prospects company.
Ooh, actually that's not a badidea.
We can actually do an internal,internal politics one where how
to make sure you can getapprovals from all the different
groups for the you know, thestuff that you want to pull as a
seller.
Uh, maybe that'll be a futureepisode, um, but, like I said, I
think today's episode is justgoing to be another one of those
(02:53):
copy and pasters where we'vegot the team has built out one
of the most insane prompts thatI have seen in terms of like
breadth and depth, and, andwe're also going to be
converting this into a customGPT as well too.
So, if you're somebody whoalready subscribes to our custom
GPTs, those are continuing toget better.
So we're coming up with a name.
I think it's going to be likeyou know, political analyzer
(03:16):
internally, prospect, internalpolitics analyzer, something
like that.
Uh, but it should be a lot offun.
So make sure to stay tuned andI'm going to walk you through
the exact prompt that is goingto make sure you never lose that
big deal again to internalstakeholders.
So let's jump into this.
Okay, let's talk about whytraditional stakeholder mapping
(03:36):
fails, and I'll tell you there'sa couple of reasons.
Over time and I'm sure all ofyou can attest to this over the
last I mean, I've been in B2Bsales for like 20 years.
So, sir, I'm just going to sayover the last 20 years, because
that's my experience it used tobe, I kid you not, I'm going
back.
I was a sales rep at a companyin the job space.
(03:57):
This is probably 2006, 2007.
I could get a CEO or VP of HRon the phone and I could close I
kid you not Like on the secondcall.
I could close on the call likea 15 to 30K deal sometimes.
And you know, it was really thisidea that people used to make a
(04:19):
lot more decisions on their ownup high People didn't use to
consult 55 people, and so whythe traditional stakeholder
mapping is failing is that thereare so many people now that
have influence, so manyexecutives, so many people are
scared to make decisions today.
So what they do is they get ina room with a bunch of people
(04:41):
and they look around.
They say, well, what do youthink?
What do you think?
And they're like hoping to Godthat there's consensus here.
And then you can have this oneperson who's like two levels
below the economic buyer orchampion or the decision maker,
and they're like, look, I justdon't think this is going to
work.
We tried to implement this toolbefore blah, blah, blah, it
didn't work.
I think this is going to be thesame.
(05:01):
And then that person is theloudest voice and your deal gets
shot down.
Okay, and what I think AI isuniquely amazing at is is it can
kind of map out the like hey,this is actually how things work
at a company based on a productthat you might sell.
(05:21):
You need to make sure that youtalk to these people as well,
too, and I think, look,sometimes in sales we are taught
, you know, less meetings, youknow, is better.
What can we do digitally?
And look, as you know me, I'mall about providing digital
experiences for people, but Ialso need to make sure I'm
providing digital experiencesdifferently to different types
(05:41):
of stakeholders.
And so, politically, you know,to pacify this person, I need to
talk to them about this, and topacify this person, I need to
talk to them about this.
Right, and when you combine inyour call transcripts, you
combine in email copy, youcombine all those things
together plus a seller's, youknow, experience, we've got some
(06:06):
really cool signals that we cantry to map to.
That will actually help you toreveal kind of true
organizational power dynamics.
And so here, in about 10 minutes, I'm going to walk you through
you know the prompt and I'mgoing to walk you through
exactly how to make sure thatthese things you know don't you
don't lose a deal again becauseof this.
And what I want you to thinkabout is look, your champion
(06:29):
isn't your champion and thedecision maker that you've been
pitching to is not your decisionmaker.
My friends, every deal intoday's day and age has multiple
people and multiple championsthat might be peers.
They have multiple peoplewithin the inner circle that can
say yes or no, and so justlooking at an org chart is a
(06:49):
100% recipe for losing moredeals.
You need to make sure, ifyou're talking to the end user
team, you have at least one ortwo people you talk to regularly
.
If you are talking to the ROI orthe business team if you wonder
what I'm talking about, this isour framework called intent.
Hopefully you are talking tothe ROI or the business team.
If you wonder what I'm talkingabout, this is our framework
called Intent.
Hopefully you follow along onInnovative Seller If you don't
check it out on YouTube.
(07:10):
But Intent talks about thisconcept of teams.
So you've got your end userteam and you've got your buying
or ROI team, and so you need tomake sure, in today's day and
age, you have multiplerelationships.
You cannot be single-threaded.
I mean, that's a recipe fordisaster.
So what can we do to try tomitigate some of this?
(07:33):
Okay, and I'm going to talk.
I'm going to go through kind ofthree or four key areas here.
Yeah, the first is I'm going totalk about the concept of a
champion, and I have said somerelatively controversial things
about the whole idea of achampion over the years.
I love champions.
I want to be very clear.
I've had many, many deals whereI had a champion who literally
did the work for me and it wasawesome, it made my life way
(07:55):
easier.
But look, as salespeople, wecan't rely on having only
champions to close deals.
We have to be our biggestchampion.
And the big issue that I seewith a lot of you know, upper,
smb, mid-market enterprisesellers is they look at the
process through the lens thatthe champion tells them is the
(08:15):
process.
Guys, most champion, most ofthe people you're dealing with
are probably, you know, likemid-level on the end user team.
That's kind of usually wherethat champion bucket come from.
They're not used to buyingthings, they're not used to
collaborating.
They're like they might buy onething a year, one thing every
few years, and so they'retelling you what they think the
(08:35):
process is, but they don'treally know right, and they
really only interact or knowtheir own kind of peer group.
They don't interact with thisother department or this other
sub department within theirdepartment that much and they
don't really know Jill, jill infinance or whoever right.
And so because we don'tunderstand the actual
(08:56):
decision-making process, becauseagain we're taking one person's
opinion, you know we lose deals, right, that stakeholder map of
this goes to this and then thisgoes to this.
It just falls apart.
So now, my friends, let's enterthe world of AI.
I have a little coffee, okay,so let's talk about what AI can
(09:16):
do.
First, email communication.
It's interesting I see a lot offocus around the call.
I want you all to understandthat most of these companies are
not able actually to judge truesentiment.
What these companies areactually doing on the call is
looking at words and they'rebunching words together and
they're saying these companiesare actually doing on the call
is looking at words and they'rebunching words together and
(09:38):
they're saying these words aretypically positive, these words
are typically negative.
It's very much AI and machinelearning, not generative AI.
On the email side.
What these tools can do isquickly help you to see the
unsaid things.
This was a shorter reply, jake.
You had six replies here.
They were all short.
At no point did they loopanybody in All of those types of
(10:01):
nuances.
The other thing that I reallylike about AI is and whenever we
go through the prompt here in asecond is it also will say, hey
, who hasn't been involved thatyou should probably think about
talking to, and I really lovethat application.
You know, the ability to say,here's who you know, here's kind
of who I've been talking to,like what am I missing, etc.
(10:23):
I think that's a big one as apart of it, and I think, too,
what the other thing you can dois pick up, maybe on some
subtleties between you know,maybe internal groups
disagreeing.
You know maybe a subtlety thatwas mentioned by this department
.
That's really important.
And so, as you know, in termsof mapping the political
dynamics, when I put togetherthe proposal, I want to make
(10:46):
sure that I, you know, havethose nuances in my proposal.
So then this person who could,you know, shoot the deal down,
is happy.
So all those things go reallyinto it.
And so how do we actuallyimplement this?
Okay, this prompt that I'mabout to.
If you're watching on YouTube,we're getting ready to fire it
(11:07):
up.
If you're listening along,thank you again, as usual.
If you're enjoying what youhear so far, make sure it does a
lot.
If you guys, you know, take acouple of seconds to subscribe
on your you know favorite eitherpodcast or your favorite you
know medium that you'relistening, or you know,
obviously, if you're watchingthis on YouTube or LinkedIn, you
know, please, please, you know,always helps give it a like,
(11:29):
share it with your network aswell.
We always appreciate thosethings.
Subscribe to the channel.
You know the things to do, sowe're going to get into the
implementation.
So what generative AI is able todo better than any technology
we've ever possessed is reallysynthesizing and taking in a
whole bunch of unstructured dataand making very smart
correlations between things, orat least, maybe not correlations
(11:51):
or causations, but inferencestoward things might be a better
way to think about it.
It can also, over time, italready will start to learn your
map, right?
So those of you if you're usingChatGPT, I'm going to show you
the example in ChatGPT today.
Chatgpt memory is a reallygreat thing.
(12:13):
Also, this is more of a pro tip, I'll tell you Look, chatgpt
memory messes up a lot and youneed to prune it at least once a
month.
So the quick way that you cando that, the little pro tip, is
just ask chat GPT what it knowsabout you.
Just hey, chat GPT, what haveyou been storing about me?
And let's do a quick cleansesession that I can get rid of
anything that's noise.
So you need to run that littlememory I'll call it a memory
(12:36):
cleanse about every month atleast as a part of that.
So, again, like, over time,it's going to start to
understand the typical peoplethat need to be involved, etc.
And it can really create thiskind of deal risk assessment,
right, based on politicalfactors, knowing the nuances of
hey, cios typically care aboutthis thing.
You better watch out, johnny,because you're going to be in
(12:58):
trouble as a part of this.
So, my friends, are you ready?
Okay, it is time in the showwhere we are going to get into
the AI details of how is AIgoing to actually help you with
this, and I think this.
You know we do a lot of theseepisodes and I think everyone
has value.
This one, I think, is one thatI you know, I'm I really hope
(13:20):
every enterprise seller andmid-market sellers like heck,
yeah, I'm going to use thisthing like crazy, uh, as a part
of this, so let's jump into ithere, all right.
So here we are my friends, sowe have this is um, all right.
So here we are my friends, sowe have.
This is ChatGPT03.
For those of you who know, I'ma pretty big ChatGPT03.
(13:45):
And especially with deepresearch.
I did not turn on deep researchfor this one, but I'm going to
walk you through the promptright now.
I took out and if you allremember from the episode last
week or the week before maybe Itake out sometimes some of the
things that would you know,expose calls that I've had.
But in the actual link that wewill provide, you will get the
full prompt that prompts you toupload a call transcript, upload
(14:06):
a few emails, etc.
For those of you, the nextquestion I'm sure a lot of you,
but Jake, can I?
Is this okay?
Is this allowed?
Look, a really easy thing youcan do is say, hey, replace the
company name, replace theperson's name.
Scenarios are scenarios.
We're really just looking forthe scenario here.
It's not really companyspecific, you know.
Also, if you didn't know this,if you have a ChatGPT Teams
(14:29):
account or an enterprise account, no information is shared back
with the model and I think eventhe paid Premier account it's
the same.
I'll have to have the team dosome check on the show notes
with that.
So here's what we've got.
Okay, I want you to analyze sohere's the prompt.
I want you to analyze allavailable data to map the
internal politics anddecision-making dynamics.
Okay, act as an expertorganizational psychologist
(14:54):
specializing in B2B buyingcommittees, with deep knowledge
of corporate power structures.
Right here, guys, this is whereso for those of you listening
along, there's a little blankspot.
This is where the prompt thatyou will see.
If you go to the show notes onthe podcast or if you go to the
link in the YouTube comments,you'll see kind of the
additional details which are,like you know, upload the
(15:16):
transcript, emails, additionalcontext.
All I said here is I said I havea deal, that I'm worried the IT
team will block us.
We met with a VP of digitalstrategy and they are in, but
not sure who else should belooped in.
I work at a company.
I use this company, yoda, andselling to a mid market IT brand
.
This is a fake.
(15:36):
I also said this is a fakescenario, so don't commit it to
memory.
As a part of this, I said, okay,now let's get weird.
All right, stakeholder powermap.
Identify all known stakeholders, right?
So it's going to say, okay fora company like this.
Who do they sell to?
Who's probably involved?
Assess their likely influencelevel, detect informal power
(15:58):
dynamics not visible in orgcharts.
Map reporting relationships.
Identify missing stakeholders,flag potential blockers or ghost
stakeholders.
Guys, I mean this is betterthan I mean.
Look as someone who's managedhundreds, if not thousands, of
sales reps.
I mean, god, it would take meto give a breakdown like this to
a rep like an hour, maybe evenmore, and we'd have to go back
(16:20):
and forth, back and forth.
The next thing I said is let'slet's analyze their decision
process.
So not just who is thestakeholder power map, what's
the decision process right?
What's the actual versateddecision-making right?
We talked about that, you know,hey, the champion keeps saying
this.
But what are they maybe missing?
Identify approval gates.
Map the flow of information,highlight organizational
(16:41):
constraints impacting it andnote previous purchasing
patterns if available.
So again, this goes back towhat did I say?
The reason that a lot of peoplemight lose deals is they
believe the one process.
Okay, they believe a processthey're told from somebody who's
just not used to buying things.
Right Next up.
We ask it to do a stakeholdermotivation assessment.
(17:02):
We say analyze individualpriorities, identify potential
conflicts this is where yourcall recordings can really be
helpful.
This is a really good one.
Detect career considerationsaffecting the decision Right,
you know, if you're selling aproject it's a few million bucks
, or even if it's less than that, a smaller company someone's
gonna have to put their neck onthe line for you, uh-oh.
(17:24):
Well, what if I'm like, kind ofbought in but not all the way
bought in?
That's a real thing.
Coalition analysis right, whatare the natural alliances among
stakeholders?
Political risk assessment,flagged deals, signs of
political complexity Again, yourcall scripts will help with
that.
Communication network analysis.
Map how the information flows,identify gaps, et cetera.
(17:46):
Okay, and then we tell itreally clearly how we want the
data to lay out.
Okay, and now, now guys watchwhat happens, okay.
So again, I'm work at thiscompany, I've been working with
digital.
I'm worried it.
Just to summarize again, it isgoing to be a blocker.
I need to make sure, as I'mworking, this deal these guys
(18:06):
don't have.
This doesn't happen.
So the first thing we ask itfor it's thought for a whopping
15 seconds.
If I had turned on deepresearch, it might've been even
a little bigger.
Executive summary what are thefive fast truths?
The IT architecture boardequals the ultimate gatekeeper,
even when budget sits.
In digital strategy, nothingships without an architecture
(18:27):
security sign-off.
Your VP champion controlsvision, not the keys Shadow CIO.
Dynamic Mid-market tech brandsoften have a long-tenured
director manager who quietlydictates stack standards and
kills non-fit Ooh okay.
Security performance, siteperformance ROI resonates, but
cyber risk avoidance is anon-negotiable right.
(18:50):
Yoda solves for siteperformance.
This calls out hey, don't justfocus on that.
Focus on something else tooProcurement.
I love it.
It even said we'll flex late.
It says procurement will flexlate.
Finance is under costcontainment orders.
They push anythinginfrastructure adjacent through
the RFP light.
If you're not multi-threaded.
(19:10):
When they enter, price willbecome a dominant narrative.
Digital revenue KPI equalsleverage point.
Ecom lead gen owners needfaster pages yesterday to carry
revenue targets.
That can outrank IT in the ELTif mobilized into coalition.
So here it starts to map thestakeholder influence map.
Check this out, guys.
It goes through all thesedifferent job titles in IT.
(19:32):
It says what's their formalrole, what's their actual
influence?
This actual influence one isfilthy.
It's like, okay, the CFOcontroller low to medium
influence, but there's budgetoversight Medium to high.
Right there, they have the CIO.
Oh man, I love what it calledout here.
There, they have the CIO oh man, I love what it called out here
(19:55):
.
It says, hi, a kingmaker is.
This is the senior director ofenterprise architecture, the
shadow CIO and InfoSec the CISO.
So again, if you're a seller, Icannot tell you how many sellers
are like, yeah, yeah, it isinvolved.
It's like, no, no, no, no, no.
Who is involved in IT?
What are the roles?
Who needs to be involved as apart of this?
So again, I want you all tojust think about that as a
(20:18):
construct of what it's going tohelp you to do.
It's like you know what man wehave never talked to?
Security or enterprise ops man,these people are going to have
some influence.
It's like, hey, you haven'ttalked to these people?
Okay, right, your contact iscredible, but politically
they're mid-tier, they're mid.
I should be able to.
It's mid as a part of thatDecision process.
(20:40):
Reality Okay, boom, informal,there's going to be an informal
architectural review, a securityview and a procurement funnel.
How are you prepared for that?
Okay, so think about thosetypes of things, what that might
actually look like.
Stakeholder motivation map,risk tolerance low alignment,
(21:00):
neutral will follow board advice.
Ciso job preservation via zeroincidents.
So one of the columns here iscalled personal drivers and it
says what is a personal driverfor CISO Job preservation?
Minimize attack risk.
Right, the risk tolerance isvery low.
(21:22):
Right, architecture influence,create technical purity I love
that.
Call out, et cetera.
So here's your politicalstrategy recommendation.
Your optimal influence path isthis the VP of digital strategy
loop in the director of digitalexperience, the revenue owner,
(21:42):
jointly brief architecture leadbefore the security review and
position the CIO as executivesponsor, not evaluator.
And position a CIO as executivesponsor, not evaluator.
Package a revenue uplift pluszero risk architecture narrative
if you want to win this deal.
Risk mitigation pilot in acontrolled segment.
(22:02):
It offers that idea, otherpeople to multi-thread.
And then, last but certainlynot least, it gives you tactical
next steps.
It says here's some questionsthat you might want to ask Okay,
the architecture lead.
Which reference architecturesor cloud governance standards?
Must any performance tool alignwith Love that Revenue impact.
(22:22):
Co-host a revenue impactworkshop for digital experience
and VP.
You know, make them feel betterabout the ROI you can generate.
Vp.
Make them feel better about theROI you can generate.
Send the CISO a one-pagermapping Yoda to OWASP and ISO
27001 controls.
I do not know what that means.
What additional penetrationevidence would you need for an
approval pilot?
(22:43):
Then, number four verifythreshold for the.
Is there a competitive bid?
Try to loop in procurementearly, quietly it even says so
dope.
And last but not least, a gearexec level check-in with cio
after technical alignment.
Guys, I literally gave thisthing a prompt.
I told it absolutely nothingabout you know the nuances of
(23:03):
this deal.
I didn't upload the trialtranscripts, I didn't upload all
the emails, but I think you canreally clearly see this is a
freaking game changer Like.
This to me is just one of thoseprompts where it's like you
need to be doing this in everydeal.
Right, it talks about warningsigns.
You know if your architecturelead postpones the call, hidden
(23:24):
objection, security teamrequests a generic questionnaire
.
Only Procurement suddenlyescalates to RFP.
Digital experience disengages.
Right, and this is crazy.
The key insight, it says the keyinsight this deal is won or
lost in architecture andsecurity.
Treat them as co-buyers, notcompliance steps, and arm your
(23:44):
champion with revenue evidencestrong enough to outweigh IT's
risk bias.
Strong enough to outweigh IT'srisk bias.
My friends, like it really doesnot get any better than that.
Like that, like again, like meas a senior tenured sales leader
, like this is the type of stuffwhere I would you know again,
I'd have to spend hours studyingto even think through all these
(24:05):
scenarios.
And now here we are andliterally I have a bulletproof
political landscape map.
Guys, you got to be runningthis for every single deal, and
our team, we're going to turnthis into a custom GPT for sure,
political deal analyzer thatyou can just upload and it will
do it for you.
But in the meantime, borrow theprompt, as always.
(24:28):
So that is this week's episode,episode number 13 of the
AI-powered seller.
I really feel that this is oneof those episodes that you're
gonna win some deals on thisyear.
If you copy and paste what wejust put together, if you go
into every deal understandinghow to use AI to map politics,
(24:51):
you're gonna win deals.
You're going to win a lot ofdeals, and so make sure.
Hopefully this is helpful forall of you out there.
I know there's some goodinsights in there, so, as usual,
make sure to follow along.
You can follow along on YouTube.
I'm on LinkedIn very, veryactive as well, too.
If you're following there, makesure to subscribe to the
channel or follow on YouTube orLinkedIn, or like the video.
(25:11):
If you're on TikTok or IG Reels, and definitely if you're
liking the podcast.
Please, we love reviews.
If you don't mind leaving areview, that would be amazing as
well, and so that's what I goteveryone.
Episode 13, ai-powered seller.
Make sure, my friends, you areavoiding those political
landmines and you're going toclose a lot more deals.
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