One of the more important aspects of success in B2B sales negotiation is the ability to identify an account’s main decision makers. Most sales professionals understand that a company’s decision makers are never the same from one customer to the next. However, within every market there are a set of norms or common practices with respect to who makes decisions.
For instance, industries that are heavily reliant upon custom-made designs, typically depend upon engineering and product manager decision makers. This contrasts to industries where products are priced like commodities and have no differentiating indicators, thereby putting the decision in the hands of procurement managers. Defining your market’s unique decision makers is paramount to closing on opportunities.
The Role of Decision Makers in Busines-to-Businesss (B2B) Sales Negotiation
In order to have a greater appreciation for the importance of defining your market’s decision makers, think of how a business owner makes decisions relative to a purchasing manager, an engineer or a product manager. Each of these roles has different concerns, needs and wants. A decision maker may want something, but it’s not necessarily something they need and a concern can relate to your product, your company’s reputation or any one of the myriad of concerns decision makers have.
These three aforementioned criteria from the basis of how a decision maker makes the decisions they do, and each is weighted differently by the different positions these key players hold. In B2B sales negotiation, your focus must start by defining the type of market you service and using that information to define the type of decision maker to pursue.
Understanding decision makers is essential to business-to-business sales success. To learn more about the strategies outlined in the above video, please go to: B2B Marketing Essentials: Decision Maker Focused Marketing Materials
1. Define Your Market
Is your market one where decisions are based primarily on a product’s price? Is your market one where vendor-customer relationships are of paramount importance? Is your market heavily reliant upon engineering knowledge and one where custom-made designs and NRE (non-recurring engineering) charges are a part of the order process? Answering these questions starts by defining the type of market you service. Defining that market allows you to better define the type of decision makers your company should focus on.
2. Who are the Main Decision Makers?
Defining your market was the first step. Now it’s time to identify the typical decision makers within your industry. As mentioned, that industry where price is the overriding factor, means that the typical decision maker will be the procurement professional. That market where NRE charges are the norm means engineering and project managers play vital roles in decisions. Define your market and then define your decision makers.
3. Define the Criteria for Decision Making
Going back to our example of the three main decision making factors of “concerns, needs and wants”, how do each of these apply to your market’s unique decision maker? What “concerns” them the most? What "needs" do they have and will their “wants” help put the decision to purchase in your favor if you address them? Understanding who makes decisions helps to define how those decisions are made.
B2B sales negotiation can be a long and arduous affair. However, it can be made easier when you take the time to define your market, its typical decision makers and how they arrive at their decisions. It is often said that a salesperson must be a different person to different people. This is exactly what’s needed when defining your market’s decision makers. It allows you to isolate their main concerns, needs and wants and allows you to dial into how best to sell and service their accounts.
If you know what their going concerns are, won’t that help close more sales? It will. If you understand their most pressing needs, won’t that allow you to address those needs? It will. If you understand their wants, won’t that allow you to improve the relationship? Again, it will. Define your market and then define its unique decision makers.
To read more about what role decision makers should play in your marketing strategies, please read: B2B Marketing Essentials: Decision Maker Focused Marketing Materials
To read about how you can improve B2B sales negotiation, please read: Improve Sales Training & Negotiation Skills with Role Playing
To learn how to defend your position as the incumbent supplier, please go here.
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