How To Make The Category Manager Your Friend
Organizations are increasingly structuring their procurement in terms of key categories. This new state of play presents a range of opportunities, as well as challenges, for the seller. Above all else, it means the salesperson must work to make the category manager his or her friend. The following article shows how this can be achieved…
Don’t Get Squeezed Between Procurement & Finance
The ‘cold war’ may now be over, but relations between procurement and finance within many organizations remain frosty. This can have many undesirable consequences for sellers, who may often find themselves unwittingly caught up in a power-struggle between the two functions. This article provides tips for sellers on how to avoid getting squeezed in the middle…
Sellers: Beware The Maverick Buyer!
Maverick buying has been all but outlawed in most organizations, even for relatively small or routine purchases. Managers today know that, if they want to spend their company’s money, they are going to have to play by the rules…
Your Sales Team Should Resemble The United Nations
“It was like The United Nations”, observed the sales director in describing the makeup of the sales team that had just arrived from his company’s consortium partner. Planning for preparing the multimillion-dollar bid was in full swing now that the team from the lead contractor in the consortium (a Fortune 1000 company) had arrived in its subsidiary partner’s boardroom…
Better Buying Goes Straight To The Bottom Line.
In these low growth times organizations are realizing that cutting costs is an easier than growing revenues.
How to Sell To Buyers Who Know More Than You
Most traditional sales techniques presuppose that the sellers knows more than the buyer. However, this does not fit with reality in respect of most complex buying decisions.
Beware: CC Lists are Getting Longer
All it takes is for one of the many CC’d recipients to raise a question, or a query to impact on the pace of the sale.
The Changing Role of Procurement
There is no universal approach to buying, so it is essential for the seller to understand the role of purchasing on a case by case basis.
Buying Is Now A Team Sport
The modern buyer is a team, not an individual. Indeed, as the example shown earlier suggests, the roll call of all those involved in the buying decision is a veritable ‘who’s who’ of the organization. The excerpt below highlights the number of levels involved in the buying decision, the seniority of the decision makers as […]
Selling To The New Buyers
When it comes to major buying decisions, managers are pulling rank. Senior managers are not just rubber-stamping buying decisions. They are taking an active role to ensure all major purchases underpin organizational goals, priorities and strategies. When Buyers Pull Rank All this means the job titles of those involved in making today’s major buying decisions […]
The Buying Team – Redrawing The Atlas Of Buying
Once upon a time a question like “who makes the buying decision?” was easy to answer; one or two names were typically sufficient to describe where the power lay. But this is no longer the case, and nowadays sellers almost need a map of organizational buying to reflect all those who make and shape the buying decision…
Finding Yourself In The Procurement Sandwich?
You can see the finishing line, and your sponsor is telling you they are ready to buy. So, it is that the many months of groundwork seem ready to pay off. You had allowed (in your costings) for the discount that has been agreed and negotiation around terms has thankfully left your original proposal relatively […]
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