You are currently working a sales opportunity that you are very excited about. Have you paused for a moment and asked yourself if you know how your customer is making the decision to purchase your product or service? If you do know, then you are light years ahead of most salespeople. If you don’t know, stop! Don’t go any further with the sales cycle until you first ask your customer this critical question.
Knowing the decision-making process within your customer’s selection process is going to allow you to navigate the sales cycle far more precisely. You can use this information to focus on what is most important to the client. Specifically, who will be making the final decision and what their buying criteria is.
Most salespeople don’t ask this key question, and they don’t ask it early on in the sales process. This leads to surprises and an “out of control” sales engagement. Knowing is power and if you don’t know how and who is making the ultimate decision to buy your product, you are essentially hoping for a win. And hope is not a strategy. (Check out Rick Page’s “Hope Is Not A Strategy” which is a great read for sales pros like yourself).
One more tip- understand that how a decision is being made and a customer’s buying criteria MAY CHANGE throughout the selection process. As time goes on, things change. It is important to be validating with your customer (from time to time) if the selection process and the criteria has changed. This is your opportunity to understand if other buying variables have surfaced that are now being focused on. This is how you stay in control and on course with an opportunity and eventually a sales win.
Know how the decision is being made on all of your sales opportunities. Test yourself today. Go through your sales funnel and ask this question on every single sales opportunity.
Happy Selling!
– Patrick