This concept that you need to engage with mulitple stakeholders in a sales process, is nothing new.

Multi-Threading, Account Based Marketing, Key Client Management and so on. I was trained to do this almost 20 years ago in my recruitment days, when I managed accounts like IBM, BT Retail and O2.  If I had relied on just one stakeholder, I would have failed miserably. 

I had to network my way through all the Sales Directors and HR Directors. I had to understand their processes. For example, if a Sales Director approached me directly, I would have to ask them, had they run their 2 week internal process first? If the answer was no, I had to say I cannot work with you until you have, otherwise HR will not sign this off. I do not want to waste mine or your time. Even if the Sales Director protested that this process was a waste of time as it never worked. 

If I hadn't "multi-threaded" my way through the account, I would have never understood this information and wasted a lot everyone's time. 

LinkedIn says there are now on average 6.8 people you need to engage or influence. This research from Gong says it is at least 3, versus when you only have 1, you are likely to lose the deal. In the attached article they have data to back it up.

Back in the day, LinkedIn was useful to find people and map accounts. Today, it has to be part of your account mapping process. There are 690 million people on LinkedIn. I guarantee that 90% plus of the people you need to engage with and influence in your deal process are on LinkedIn. If you have LinkedIn Sales Navigator, not only can you map these people, you can track and engage with those who are active, start to draw them into your sphere of influence.

Subject to how good your CRM set up and behaviours are, and if you have tools such as Introhive, there really is no excuse for sales teams to say "I don't know who I need to bring into this deal".

You either - 

Ask the direct question to the first contact - Who else will be involved in this and who will be signing this off? If they cannot answer that, or won't answer this, alarm bells should start ringing - are you talking to the right person(s).

Based on your historical deal data, you should have an idea of who are the typical stakeholders, by job title / function / seniority , that need to be involved. 

Throw some Sales Engagement technology at all of this, such as Gong , Salesloft, Outreach or Clari , this technology can help guide on the Who, the How and the When to engage.

This concept is not a new one. It may have a new name, but this has been one of the basic rules of engagement when it comes sales where you need to engage with multiple stakeholders.

There is now more technology than you can shake a stick at to do this.

The key to success in all of this, is how you do it. 

How does your message stand out from everyone else?

How do you command their attention in a noisy, time poor world?