Demystifying Systems Thinking for Sales

I’ve talked a lot about systems thinking on this blog, and I thought it might be helpful to demystify its main concepts, specifically for the sales industry. First, a definition: Systems thinking is an approach that seeks to understand how parts of a system interact and change over time by viewing problems and their context as interconnected systems.

In sales, systems thinking can help us understand why and how buyers make the decisions they make, and how various factors impact those decisions. We can then use that information to help them make more favorable decisions. To understand how this works, the first thing we have to understand is that a sales department is a complex adaptive system.

The Sales Department Is a Complex Adaptive System

A complex adaptive system is an entity or structure that maintains itself by tending to its own needs and also adapting itself in response to external conditions. A human body, for instance, is a complex adaptive system that maintains itself by breathing, eating, drinking, and resting, thus ensuring its ongoing survival. It adapts itself in response to external conditions by sweating, shivering, breathing harder, or pumping blood faster, and so on.

In the same way, the sales department is a system that maintains itself by engaging with customers and providing revenue to the company, thus ensuring its ongoing “survival.” It adapts to external conditions such as market changes, organizational priorities, and competition in order to continue to provide the service that ensures its survival.

When you view sales through the lens of systems thinking, it’s clear that B2B sales is never about convincing one person to make a purchase.

In order to understand the sales department as a system, it’s helpful to understand the DSRP framework developed by Derek and Laura Cabrera at Cabrera Lab. DSRP describes the four primary characteristics of a system:

• D stands for “Distinctions” which is how you know what IS and IS not part of the system

• S stands for “Systems” which refers to the fact that every system is part of a larger system, and contains smaller systems

• R stands for “Relationships” which is how systems interact with each other

• P stands for “Perspectives” which refers to the fact that each system views the world from a unique point of view

Here’s how those concepts apply in sales.

Distinctions are the Lines You Draw Between One System And Another

Each of the systems within your company are distinct from the other systems. Marketing, sales, finance, HR, and product are all separate but interrelated systems. Distinctions are the rules by which you decide what IS and IS NOT part of one system or another. For instance, marketing IS the department that raises brand awareness and delivers leads to the sales department. It IS NOT the department that develops product or manages cash flow. Sales IS the department responsible for landing new customers and growing company revenue. Sales IS NOT responsible for training all employees or driving the company’s overall business strategy. And so on.

Complex Adaptive Systems Contain Smaller Systems (And are Part of Larger Systems)

A human body contains many smaller systems working together, such as organs, circulatory mechanisms, the nervous system, and so on. Likewise, a sales department consists of many smaller systems working together. For instance, your sales technology stack is a system inside the sales department. Your human sales team is another system. Your processes, methodologies, training, and other supportive structures are systems. These systems work together to serve the larger system of the sales department.

In the same way, your sales department is part of the larger system of the overall company, and works with other systems to serve the larger system. The company, in turn, is part of the larger system of the industry. And the industry, in turn, is part of the larger system of a national economy.

Relationships Are How the Distinct Systems Interact With Each Other

Every system interacts with other systems. For instance, marketing and sales have a relationship where they try to work together to increase revenue. This relationship can be smooth, fraught, complicated, or seamless. HR and sales have a relationship where HR helps the sales system recruit, retain, and manage its human workforce. The product department and sales have a relationship where the product team tries to develop products that the sales team can sell effectively, and the sales team sells it.

Each of these relationships hides “secrets” about the way that the larger system operates. A company with a seamless, well-coordinated sales and marketing team, for instance, is likely to perform better than one where the relationship is rigid and uncoordinated. This relationship holds part of the “secret” to why a company does or does not perform well in its market.

Perspectives are How Systems Perceive Each Other

The sales department has a distinct perspective on how the marketing department is operating, which is different from how the marketing department views itself, or how HR or product views the marketing department. The marketing department has its own perspective on how the sales department is operating, which is distinct from how HR and finance view the sales department.

Likewise, at the beginning of a sales project, the sales team perceives a prospect’s problems in a certain way that may not be the same way the prospect perceives it. Within the prospect organization, the stakeholders may perceive the problem in their individual ways that are different from each other.

Pulling It All Together

When you view sales through the lens of systems thinking, it becomes clear that a sales project is never about convincing one person to make a purchase. Rather, it is about understanding that every purchase takes place within the context of interacting and overlapping systems. The sales team’s job is to understand those systems, and help the prospect’s organization choose the changes that will move them toward their goals.

Using the DSRP framework, sales teams can identify the relevant systems that will impact and be impacted by their offering, zoom in and out among them, and understand the relationships and perspectives of the stakeholders within those systems. By doing this, they position themselves as decision-making catalysts who can help stakeholders develop a shared mental model and reach a decision that results in the outcomes they want.