Understanding Business Buyers: Add Value & Differentiate Yourself
Selling to or servicing a business buyer? Ahhh, then your job is chock full of opportunities to add value and differentiate yourself in the process by helping them with their agenda (recall last week's blog post "Who's Agenda Is It Anyway?")
Your client/prospective client is making a purchase decision on behalf of his/her organization, as part of their job.This is very different from buying for one’s own consumption. Some of the more obvious differences include:
- Buyer(s) not spending their own money
- Often multiple buyers or influencers
- Multi-step buying process
- Longer sales cycles
- Relationship driven
- Focused target market
Some of the not-so-obvious differences when buying for one’s job include:
- Each purchase must solve a real business problem
- A poor purchase can be a career-ending event
- Business buyers use more rational thought when making purchasing decisions and are motivated by saving money, increasing productivity, reducing risk, or raising profitability which all lead to looking good and enhancing their profile internally
- There is a personal agenda behind every business purchase
In my travels, I've come across the following personal agendas:
- Wanting to set a precedent for doing something new
- Covering one's own proverbial behind
- Staying under the radar
- Making a statement (with a loud-speaker)
- Trying to get noticed or acknowledged
- Upsetting the apple cart
In addition, there are a whole slew of additional factors at play, all related to your buyer's role in their organization:
- How long they've been with the organization and how long they've been in their role
- Who they report to
- Who they get along with (and don't get along with) in their organization
- How satisfied they are in their role/organization
- Whether they are in a leadership position, or must lead from a non-authoritative position (see the April 26 Blog post: What vs How: Selling to Buyers in a Non-Authoritative Position)
Understanding Business Buyers - The choice is up to you.
Before you is an opportunity to add value to your business buyers and differentiate yourself in the process. You can do this by making it your business to understand your buyer's business and to learn what's at stake for him/her in hiring you.
If you are not tuned into the factors that come into play when your contact is buying for his/her job, or worse, you ignore them, you are missing what is arguably the most important part of your relationship. Remember, the What vs How conversation? You are being judged not just by what you do, but also by how you do it.
Business buyers offer many opportunities for you to wow them with your how - but are you paying attention?
I wish you good business success!
Catherine Mitchell
ps. A great article from the Rainmaker Blog has come to my attention since posting this Blog entry: Do you know what your clients really need? Check it out here. I think it summarizes nicely the concept of understanding your buyer's agenda.
Client-Centric Selling with the Agreement Based Sales® Program and the LEAP Adult Learning® System.