SALESU

Want to Win the Sale? Stop Playing the Purchasing Game

by Mark Shonka and Dan Kosch

Over the past several years, the sales game has become dramatically more challenging.

The playing field is overrun with ruthless and powerful purchasing professionals who were at one time relegated to a back office but now have been elevated to C-level purchasing officers entrenched in the executive suite.

Attaining the lowest price at any cost is their goal, and they couldn't be better equipped to make that happen with everything from quality initiatives that streamline purchasing procedures, to buying consortiums, to online vendor auctions where the lowest bidder wins.

Undoubtedly, purchasing will continue to evolve and advance. If sales does not evolve and advance in response, it will retreat until it's off the playing field altogether.

Traditional selling demands that you win over these formidable gatekeepers with the best product and price, under the assumption that you'll eventually move beyond bidding contests and into an arena where decisions are made based on what will most benefit their organization (that's value) as opposed to what will save the most money (that's commoditization.)

But this strategy will ultimately be fatal to your sales management career, especially if you work for a small- to mid-size organization. Why? Because we're seeing larger, more diversified organizations with deeper pockets embrace the strategy of selling at a loss simply to drive competitors out of the marketplace.

Consider the case of one company that isn't the biggest in the marketplace, but carved out a specific, complex and profitable niche.

It's now being pushed out by larger corporations. These competitors are offering a similar product near or at a loss. And get this: in some cases, they don't even have the capacity to provide the solution - they're selling cheap and addressing that issue later! The ultimate goal is to get the contracts, push the innovator out of the picture, and likely jack up their prices.

As a result, the innovator has watched its sales margins plummet by 75% in the past five years!

Meet With Decision Makers

Don't let that happen to you. Take control by starting a new game - one where you and your sales team make the rules by going directly to the executives who make decisions based on what will help them achieve their business objectives, not what will save them the most money.

After all - that's what the purchasing agent is charged to do; they are rewarded based on how they save money in the short-term. Promoting the big-picture potential, such as long-term return on investment or efficiencies created by more streamlined processes, is simply not their job. That's your sales team's job.

At first glance, it would appear that bypassing purchasing agents to reach decision makers would be a surefire route to sudden sales death. Conversely, not doing so will ensure that eventually your salespeople will be transformed from key contacts to mere pawns who quote prices. That is deadly for your company's bottom line, and ultimately, your career.

Your only defense against commoditization is developing relationships with those who make investment decisions based on how their business will benefit, not on how much money they will save. The process begins by doing research - gathering data and information in order to better understand the prospect's business beyond needs analysis. Your salespeople should read prospects' annual reports, pore over articles about target customers, learn about their industry... In general, get a strong grasp of their business objectives, strategies and issues.

Each salesperson should retain a "coach" from the prospect's side, someone who has inside information and is eager to share it. Finding coaches requires networking savvy and investigative know how, but they give your salespeople an edge in making the process work because they provide knowledge that can't be obtained anywhere else.

Knowledge Is Power

Your salesperson's ultimate goal is to leverage this hard-won knowledge to access key decision makers and deliver an intelligent, powerful presentation that will conclusively demonstrate how a business relationship with your company can help them achieve their business objectives.

The impact of this presentation will startle your rep and the decision makers.

They'll be impressed by how much your salesperson knows about their company.

Purchasing agents believe, at best, that all sales professionals bring to the table is product knowledge. But a good sales professional brings process knowledge, industry expertise and operations insight that can help prospects see their business from an entirely new - and more profitable - perspective.

If you want to thrive in today's marketplace, this is precisely what your sales team should be selling, but only to the people who are buying it. When that happens, everybody wins.
 

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