Buying Roles within our Accounts

Due to the holidays, I have been negligent in writing, but that will change as of right now. This installment will cover the four “buying influences” within our accounts that we need to know and with whom we need to have a positive business relationship. We will discuss the responsibilities of each “buyer” and some of their concerns in our sales process. We will give examples of who these buyers might be within our account and how their position can be of help to us in making our sale.

There are four distinct buying influences in each account. These are not necessarily purchasing people and in some cases these people would not even be asking to purchase our product at all. However, each may have a say in the buying decision and as such, they are very important to our sales success. Therefore, we need to have a good business relationship with each of them.

The first buying influence is called the Economic Buyer. There is usually only one of these in each sale. This is the person within the account who can say “Yes,” when all other buyers have said “No!” For example, if you have presented your product idea to a buyer and the buyer tells you that they do not have any money left in their budget year, you are now out of luck. But if you have a positive, business relationship with the Economic Buyer – the Decision Maker in the account - this is a person who can find the money for the sale when other departments have no more money to spend.

Your presentation to this buyer should reference ROI – return on investment. This buyer thinks in terms of investing in something that will either save time, improve productivity or help to generate new revenue for the company or department. Therefore, if spending dollars today, will generate a substantial return tomorrow, this person is far more likely to reach into another source of money within the overall company budget to make that purchase. You may find that the Economic Buyer is the owner, the President, or a high-level company officer, or perhaps a board member of the company. You need to know who they are and they need to know who you are for that to happen in order to have any sales success with them.

Our next buying influence is called the User Buyer. There are usually many of them in our accounts. These are the people that use our products or services and often times are department heads. Their concerns are centered on solving problems and making their operations easier and more efficient. They are concerned with proper installation of our product and training for their people to ensure proper use and safety for ease of operation. They also are concerned with customer service in the event that a problem arises.

User Buyers can be responsible for departments such as maintenance, plant operations, food service, housekeeping, accounting, etc. They will each have their own budgets and can normally order your product directly, unless the size of the purchase restricts that ability. In that case, you will definitely have to have input from the Economic Buyer to complete the sale.

Next we have the Technical Buyer. These buyers may seem to be in place with the sole purpose of saying “No!” to your recommendation. It’s not unusual to have a technical buyer using their own personal feelings or beliefs to guide their approval process for a product. On one occasion in my Johnson Wax days, I ran into a technical buyer who refused to allow any product into the account that contained any ammonia whatsoever. I tried to explain that the ammonia actually enhanced the performance of the product an was very safe, but this buyer refused to change her position. What finally won the day for me was to have this buyer speak directly to a product development manager in our R & D department before she agreed to let me even demonstrate the product in her facility, never mind to allow the facility to purchase that product.

There can be many technical buyers within an account. These buyers serve a very important purpose for the facility. In manufacturing companies, the technical buyer may serve on a Safety Committee. In this case, they have very stringent rules on what is allowed into the company. In healthcare accounts, patient care is critical to nursing, so any product that could have a potentially negative effect on patients will need to be approved by someone from nursing. In this case, the head nurse, surgical coordinator or operating room nurse is serving as a technical buyer. Detailed documentation is usually what is required to prove that your product is safe to use.

Our last buying influence is called the Coach Buyer. The Coach Buyer could be any of the above buyers or they could come from outside the account all together. Our coach is someone who is known and trusted by the account as well as respected, with a high degree of credibility, in order to be valuable to us in selling the account.

The coach can provide us with valuable information in our attempt to sell the customer because of their knowledge of all the players within the account. They want us to sell the account for “their own reasons.” In the case of the User Buyer, they may want to have our product used in their department because of their past experience from using it in another account. In the case of the Economic Buyer, they may feel that before they spend money on a new product or service, they want us to present it to our product to their user buyers to ensure proper buy-in from them. It’s not uncommon to hear an economic buyer say that they don’t want to spend money for something that their people are not going to like to use and use properly, so they become our Coach Buyer providing hints on how to sell other buyers within the account.

An example of someone from outside the account might be a sales manager who used to call on the account prior to our taking over sales responsibility. Since they still know many of the influences within the account, they can suggest a strategy to use to close the business. They obviously want us to succeed in selling and they may know where all the sales “land mines” are buried. As you know from your current sales experiences, selling in large accounts can be difficult. If you don’t know all the players and how they connect to one another, you may not be able to close the deal. A Coach Buyer can be our biggest asset in situations like these.

For more information, read “Strategic Selling,” by Robert Miller & Stephen Heiman.

Please visit my website at www.mccannmotivations.com for more information.