Recently I conducted a quick survey about how decision making is changing in this economic climate. I asked more than 150 Sales Professionals and
Leaders to reply to the following true-or-false statement: In this economy, decisions are being elevated to more senior and financially oriented decision makers.
A whopping 92% said true.
While not completely surprised, this was a big number. I needed to find out more, so I asked what customers were actually saying. Here are some of the things I heard:
· “My client wants to place an order with us but they can no longer approve purchases.”
· “Every purchase must now be approved by the CFO.”
· “HQ approval is required for all purchases over $200k; it has been $500k for as long as I can remember.”
· “I have been told that all vendors must reduce prices by 20%; agree or we will go elsewhere. It’s not me—I am sorry about this.”
· “It is all about the numbers now—lowest price wins.”
Here is the good news—customers are buying! More good news—most of us want higher-level relationships with our customers and higher-level people are now involved. Even more good news—I forecast that there will be less competition because many sales people will do nothing to adapt to this situation, so they won’t meet with these new players. And the best news of all: The gatekeepers you have been dealing with now need you to meet with their bosses or they won’t have anything to do…and we all know what that leads to.
So it seems that we would need to get access to these folks and then meet with them about their decision criteria. Let’s look at access first.
Call your normal contact and say something like this. “It sounds like there are some changes and that Bill [the new Decision Maker] is a new member of the decision-making team. I want to make sure that you have our best proposal and I would like to talk with Bill so that I can understand his criteria and ensure that our proposal addresses them. Seems like this would be good for all of us; how can we set this up?”
The next step is the meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to capture the issues that the solution must address from this new decision-maker’s perspective; the steps he will take to decide yes OR no; and the criteria that he will use to decide among alternatives.
Notice that the purpose isn’t to TELL him about our solution or proposal. There will be time for that after you understand the situation. After you have this discussion, update your proposal or offer and close the business.
Common sense put into common practice.
Subscribe