Staple Yourself To Their Order
Are there opportunities to optimize how your customers interact with your solution from the moment of purchase to the point of payment? To find out ‘staple yourself to the order’.
So You Think You Know The Customer’s Buying Process?
Sellers are naturally focused on the purchase order. However, in winning the sale it is important to look beyond the buying decision to see the customer’s broader business and procurement goals.
Finding Your Hidden Sources Of Value
There may be unrealized opportunities for your solution to deliver even greater value to the customer. This insight provides a methodology to uncover your hidden sources of value.
Sellers Beware: The Procurement Gap
There is often a gap between how the buying decision should be made and how it is actually going to be made. That is between the buyers internal procedures, or external view of buying best practice and the everyday reality of rushed, or messy decisions. We call it the Procurement Gap. Helping the buyer to [...]
It’s Official: Procrastination Is Good For Buying!
Sellers battle procrastinating buyers every day in the hope of meeting this quarter’s target. But as a new book reveals there is a good reason for buyers to want to delay a decision. It is a classic case of buyer as a tortoise and seller as a hare. Selling To The Procrastinating Buyer Understandably sellers [...]
Sales Limbo: Are You Still Waiting For The P.O.?
Sellers are rightly reluctant to celebrate the winning of a deal until all the paperwork has been received, but it can be very slow in coming. Indeed, waiting for the P.O. is the equivalent of Sales Limbo. There was a time when the signing of the deal was the culmination of all the seller’s [...]
It Is Time To Play By The Buyer’s Rules
There are many things about modern buying that frustrate, even annoy, salespeople. But top of the list is buying rules and procedures. But this frustration is futile, even counter-productive. As this article shows sellers should stop resisting the inevitable and learn to play by the rules. Complaining About The Rules? Sellers regularly complain [...]
Fortress Buying – Why Won’t Buyers Let You In?
More and more professional buyers are adopting a ‘fortress mindset’ in their approach to dealing with sellers. In short, they have erected defenses that are designed to keep sellers at bay. In this article, we examine how you can encourage buyers to lower their defenses…
Tips On Selling To The Bureaucratic Buyer
If buying is becoming more bureaucratic, then what are the implications of this for sellers? We asked sellers to share their tips on how to sell more successfully to bureaucratic buyers…
Sellers Make Dangerous Assumptions About Buying
As more salespeople are learning to their cost, assumptions about how the buying decision is going to be made can be dangerous.
Should You Ask ‘What Is Your Buying Process?’
Typically, salespeople wonder if asking ‘what is your buying process?’ is a question that will either startle, or draw a blank stare from the buyer.
There May Be Flexibility In Even The Most Rigid Buying Process
As salespeople it is easy to assume that buyers have become more machine-like in their approach to buying and that means they overlook opportunities to engage with buyers to the full extent possible.
Oh, that buying was so simple!!
The 5 steps model of buying is a one dimensional picture of buying can catch the salesperson off his, or her guard.
Examining The Actions Of The Buying Process
So, we have examined the key steps of the buying process. But, within each step, how much discretion remains in the hands of the manager-buyer? Is the buying process a flexible blueprint or a rigid rulebook? The Fortune 1000 buying process we have highlighted is highly prescriptive, something that is increasingly common. It clearly mandates what [...]
A Step-By-Step Progression Through The Buying Process
Each progressive step brings the purchase one step closer to reality, with the commitment being made gradually over many months. Thus, the purchase decision is not simply a matter of one big YES or NO decision. Rather it is the culmination of a series of YES or NO decisions at each stage of the buying [...]
Buying Process: The Seller In The Middle
So far you are probably thinking this buying process is all about the buyer as there has been no mention of the seller yet. Well, now that we have looked at the conception and the conclusion of the Six Step Buying Process, and before we start to examine all the detail that is involved, let [...]
The STEPS Of The Buying Process
In our Fortune 1000 example managers must follow six key steps to gain purchasing approval. These logical and self-explanatory steps, ranging from Initial Requirements Capture to Launch and Review are shown below. The 6 Steps of the Buying Process These steps can take place over anything from three months to two years, and are likely [...]
Fortune 1000 Buying Process
Organizational buying, once ad hoc and unstructured, has become highly sophisticated and process-driven. Although salespeople have noticed some changes, they often underestimate just how sophisticated buying has now become. In this section many salespeople will come face-to-face for the very first time with the full complexity of buying — in the form of a Fortune [...]
Buying Process – A Summary Of The Implications
Organizations are making slower and, in many cases, fewer buying decisions. But these decisions are being more carefully made, with greater consideration and planning than ever before. It seems inevitable that all this will lead to better buying decisions or at least decisions that reflect more closely organizational priorities and objectives. However, it also means [...]
Buyers & Sellers Share Little In Common!
When buyers and sellers meet they are often on the opposite site of a meeting room table. Their roles are as different as those of doctor and patient, or teacher and student. We often talk about buying as selling turned inside out. But just how much have buying and selling in common? More to the [...]
