There is No Buying Process

We all have heard something similar to this from one resource or another, “statistics show that 70% of the buying process is done by the time your prospect talks to you” – right? What is often assumed by this assertion is we no longer need to help educate our prospects and that they are all intense researchers who know what to look for and where to find it. We just assume they are already eager to buy because they wouldn’t have called us—oh, I mean, filled out an online form and submitted it—unless they were ready…right?

Should you be so fortunate as to get an “inbound” lead, we have often been told from that point on it is important to understand your prospect’s buying process which has been thoughtfully and strategically created and refined so they can make a good decision…baloney.

Wake Up: There is No Buying Process!

During the past 5 years, a very cool way to sound like a disrupter in the Sales Consulting world has been to talk not just about the importance of sales process, but to talk about the even MORE important customer buying process. Why? Because in order to successfully sell to someone you must understand how they buy and then integrate your sales process into their buying process. I agree. The problem is while some companies may actually have a buying process, most don’t, and if they do, they are biased and usually don’t work well. A couple of classics:

RFP/RFI/RFQ? Just another way of saying, “We already have a provider we want but we need to do this to please purchasing and our executive team to make it look like we did a thorough job.” How many RFP’s are created in a vacuum with no real valid process behind them?

“I’m in charge of collecting the proposals.” Ever heard that one before? Someone is assigned to protect the executive team. Am I the only one who finds this amusing? Are they scared? Aren’t they executives? Isn’t their #1 priority to make informed decisions to help protect and grow the company? They avoid having to do research and answer questions that might actually help the potential vendor create an exact solution instead of guessing what they want. Weird.

The Problem

I’ll admit, our buyers do have more access to information about us than ever before. The internet is a great thing. And when it works the way we need it to, it does help open the door for new sales opportunities.

The problem is, most of our prospects don’t know how (and often don’t have the time) to walk through that door. When they try, the run into bad information, poor research and documentation, or they are limited by the other human beings who are involved in the purchase. Why? Because they, like all of us, are fallible and have very little idea how to make an important purchase.

So when you do uncover, or the customer uncovers, an opportunity to engage in evaluating your product or service—how do you figure out if they really have a buying process?

Ask Then Define

The best way to start is to ask them to share it with you. Then, after you hear what will most likely be a pretty standard answer of how they will do it, try something out of the ordinary. Offer to help them define it.

Let them know you want them to make the right decision and that you can outline the steps they need to take to do so at the potential peril of your deal. That’s right, let them know you are willing to lose the deal as long as they make the right decision.

Walk them through these steps to create clarity and good decision making:

1. Begin with the end in mind: When do they need this purchase/implementation to take place? What is the Return on Investment they are seeking? What are the outcomes they are hoping to achieve by purchasing this new product or service? Hard or soft-cost savings? Both? New revenue generation? Retain and grow current revenue? What is the estimated budget? If they cannot answer these questions, this is going to be a painful (long, disorganized, unfocused) decision making process because they are not clear on why or when they are doing this.

2. Based on those outcomes: Who should be involved in the evaluation? How much time should they put aside to listen, participate and decide?

3. Based on those stakeholders: What should the discovery look like? How long will it take to gather their point of view? How long will it take to evaluate the solutions? What level of commitment will they require from their internal team?

4. Based on that commitment: What does the schedule look like? In order to meet the proposed start date, by what date does the decision need to be made? In order to make the decision, what are the logical steps that need to happen and when, in order to accommodate an adequate discovery for all of the vendors involved?

5. Based on that schedule: What do the steps look like? What are you going to accomplish with each meeting/conversation/email/survey? Who will be in charge? What commitment is required to be involved/respond/engage?

6. Based on the agreed upon commitment: When should the process begin? Who is in charge to make sure all of this happens?

Reality

How many of your potential customers that you are currently in a sales process have thought of all of these things? Not many.

Why should you care?

Because it will separate you from your competition. Because it will position you as a professional. Because it will help you sell more and sell better. Because it will help your potential customer make the right decision.

Will this slow your sale down? Probably, initially. But in the end, it will speed it up because they will be clear on what, why and how they are buying so they won’t waffle over a final decision and drag it out for months, or worse, make no decision.

Will this help you? Yes. It will help you identify a good potential customer and a bad one. Unless they can articulate very clearly how they plan on buying, they don’t have a process. This gives you the opportunity to decide whether or not they are even worth your company’s time and resources.

As always, I will ask you to make a decision because the best sales professionals consciously make the decision to be great. You can rely on the assumptions as I described above. If you feel your product or service is not worth the level of effort, great, I completely understand.

Or, you can decide to be a pro, and separate yourself from all those that don’t.