When you’re calling on the cast of characters in your sales process, you’re going to have multiple people involved. Multiple decision makers.
It’s key to have a better understanding of the different types of decision makers and their equally different buying motivations.
Have you ever found yourself having a great pitch, a really good features and benefits presentation, and totally hitting a home run with somebody in the organization, only to find out that there were other decision makers in the meeting that your pitch didn't resonate with?
Maybe you couldn't have done anything in the process to avoid that, but I want to share with you a way to think through the five kinds of decision makers that may give you a little bit more information on how to adapt your presentations, and overall your approach.
Here are the 5 different kinds of decision makers:
• Ultimate Decision Maker
• User
• Influencer
• Economic Buyer
• Technical Buyer
The ultimate decision maker is the person who signs the check, writes the PO or gives the final go ahead.
The user is the one who uses your stuff. They're the implementer. The user has a much different motivation, many times, than an ultimate decision maker or even an influencer.
The influencer is the person off to the side and, many times, hard to identify. They're not the ultimate decision maker, but they're going to weigh in with their two cents or ‘the ultimate’ is going to call them and ask for their opinion.
The economic buyer is like they sound. Quite often, they’re focused on money, and ROI. The professional procurement people are typically economic buyers.
The technical buyer (sometimes also the user) is the person that wants to see the specs and technical stuff attached what you’re selling, and they will fall in love with it.
The person who's the technical buyer or the user quite often has a very different motivation than the economic buyer. They all might have different motivations than the person off to the side who's an influencer.
As you look at your opportunities and you have prospects that you keep calling on, use this as a mental construct. A way to get your head around, and think about, your approach. Not only your presentations, but how you’re going through the sales process. Because all these decision makers have different pains.
They all have different issues.
They all have a different pain in relation to their company.
If late deliveries are the company pain, I can almost guarantee you they’ll have a different spin on how that affects them. If part of that pain is how it personally and emotionally affects them, and you’re going off of your primary contact and what their pain is, your approach might not resonate with some of the other folks that either aren't affected by the pain or affected differently.
Same thing when you’re talking about budget.
Same thing about talking about the process for making a decision.
It starts with taking a big step back. When you're mapping out the cast of characters, ask yourself which of the five decision makers are they? Based on that, how do you need to change your approach?
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Check out some of my recent blog posts:
Beware Of Premature Presentation Syndrome as a Chicago Sales Professional
Sandler Secret: Use The Submarine As A Diagnostic Tool
Dealing With Terms & Conditions As A Chicago Sales Professional
How To Get To The Right Decision Makers
Millennial's & Gen Z - What This Incredible Generation Means To You As A Chicago Sales Manager