Ch 4 Buyer Focused Selling PDF

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Ch 4: Buyer Focused Selling Steps in the buying Process 1. Recognize a need 2. Define the product needed 3. Develop detailed specifications 4. Search for qualified suppliers 5. Acquire and analyze proposals 6. Select supplier 7. Place and receive order 8. Evaluate product performance ● Where can a salesperson have an impact? ● How so? Types of Buys ● New buy - more educational than a rebuy ● Straight rebuy- ask to see if they are satisfied with order, more about maintaining relationship, before it happens ask for new needs, after buy, relationship is better established ● Modified rebuy- understanding new needs and specifications, tailor rebuy for new needs Organizational Buying and Selling ● Derived From consumer demand ● Inelastic demand ● Joint demand Organizational Needs and Criteria ● Economic criteria ○ Life- cycle costing ● Quality criteria ○ Based on specifications ● Service criteria ○ Value analysis So what do we mean when we say that a customer wants good value? ● V= B-C ● Value is often defined as the benefits a product or service provides minus the costs of acquiring, implementing and using the product or service Life Cycle Costing ● Which is the best value for paint? ○ Benjamin moore: $30 per gallon, covers 550 ft^2, lasts 5 years ○ Sherwin williams: $45 per gallon, covers 750 ft^2, lasts 6 years ○ Behr Premium: $20 per gallon, covers 675 ft^2, lasts 3 years ■ Understanding the Buying Center: Buyer Focused Selling ● Buyers are working in groups to make a purchase ● As purchases become more expensive and complex, the risk becomes bigger

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Buyers work in groups to minimize risk Group is called buying center Usually have to be introdcuced to decision maker, buyer is usually who you talk to The types of buyers: ○ Financial buyer- economic buyer ■ holds the purse strings ■ Makes the final decision ○ Gatekeeper ■ Buffer the decision maker from unwanted sales calls ■ Wanted sales people get passed the gatekeeper ■ The best way to do so is to get invited to the financial buyers office ○ Advocate/ Coach ■ Will give good advice on how to proceed on selling efforts ■ Help to get audience, pitch the right products, and close the deal ○ Influencer/ technical buyer ■ Care about details ■ Does Not have formal authority ■ Has ear of others in buying center ■ The others rely on the influencer to voice their opinions ○ User ■ Uses product and service ○ Blocker ■ Stops the process ■ Talk to advocate/ coach to help with the blocker Important to know the roles are not always played by different people Also know multiple people can play the roels Have to consider power 2 types of power ○ Delay: slow you down ○ Negate: stop you ■ Much more dangerous ■ Leads to the blocker

Today's Information Overload Buyer: Are you Helping or Hurting? ● Negative selling trend that is increasing is information overload ● Today’s saturated information overloaded world, it is overwhelming and could be confusing to buyers ● People are buried with info all day every day ○ Average us adult consumes over 100,000 printed words a day, the equivalent of a typical novel ○ Internet users see over 1,700 banner ads in a month ○ Most americans are on the receiving end of 12 hours worth of information per day- outside of work ○ One daily new york times now contains more information than someone living

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250 years ago would have seen in a lifetime Too much info affects/ delays ability to make decisions Brain can hold 7 items in working memory at a time ○ Analysis paralysis The more words, the more the message is lost ○ Use pics/ graphs instead? All about balance Have a clear message ○ Be able to support it with insight Focus on key elements Use simple relevant stories to communicate your main points in a way that prospects can more easily consume Let the prospects desire for more information be a guide to how much you share

Don't Ignore the Procurement Buyer Role ● Procurement or purchasing function has emerged as a force to deal with in recent years as companies have searched to cut their operating costs. ○ Cutting costs from suppliers= save money for your company ● Procurement department has taken on a considerable power and is now a major player you need to consider in your sales strategy ○ Bigger companies- most deals will require final sign off from procurement ● Many sales people neglect this ● Sales people who take it into account early on have greater success ● The key is using the basics of good selling strategy ○ First acknowledge their role in the buying process ○ Assess their needs, interests, and motivations ● Consider the following ○ All about $- be proactive in communicating and quantifying economic value of your offering over your competitors ■ Make the savings simple and clear ○ The soft stuff matters too- quality and continuity ■ Explain benefits/ relationships etc ■ Demonstrate how your offering can reduce the overall business risk to the buying firm ○ Not all suppliers are created equal- usually segmented purchasing teams ■ Understand how your firm is classified by procurement ■ Take the time outside of the deal to build relationships with procurement managers to better understand how they view you and your company ○ This isn’t amateur hour- they know who/ what they are dealing with ■ Have intense training in negotiation and sales management ● They know the tricks ■ They have a strong analytical personality ■ Less swayed by emotion and focused n ROI analyses and quantitative framing

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■ Be prepared Sales professionals must recognize the growing power of this type of buyer

Why Buyers Buy: Buyer Focused Selling ● Why do customers buy? ○ We know a great deal about buyer behavior ● Three important thoughts on buyer behavior ○ Understand buyers pov ○ Buyers buy to solve problems ○ They follow consistent process ● Sales focus too much on what they sell and too little than who they are selling to ● We have to consider their pov because they make the final decision ● Buyers rarely talk freely of what they need ● Buyers needs ○ Explicit- know their needs and say it ○ Implicit- only see the symptoms and needs are implied ● As a sales person want to make implied needs, explicit solutions ● The process is 4 steps: ○ Stimulate consumption process ■ Cognitive ■ Emotive ■ Autonomic ○ Searching for alternatives ■ Have to be on top of someone's mind for them to buy your product ○ Choosing a solution ■ Vital to your success because it's what gets u money ○ Satisfaction ■ Help them see positives of purchase to improve ■ Probe level of satisfaction if they bought from competitor ● They think of past experiences Tracking buyer's journey ● Starts with status quo ○ Competitor ○ Nothing at all ○ Business as usual ○ Most deals lost here ● Chang ○ Pain or gain ■ Implications of moving forwards ■ Political risk ■ Individual motivation ■ Web research or peer contacts ■ Initial meetings with vendors

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■ Independent Definition ○ Clearer vision ○ Ballpark pricing requests Info floodgates open from vendors and independent research ○ Clearest message and solution swings Issue clarity+ process clarity= who ? budget? Risks? Return Most deals lost here because cost ben or rational is not strong enough Evaluation ○ Defining concepts ○ Explore other options ○ RFP process ○ Final tweeks Business case? Go or no go? ○ ROI understood and documented ○ Clarity direction and candor After selection ○ Final sign off ○ Additional vendor meetings ○ Test solution ○ Leverage in negotiations ******GO OVER PAYCOM MATERIAL******...