Do you understand the process your customers go through when making a purchasing decision? For most of our customers, buying professional services is process, not an event. Therefore, it makes sense that we have marketing and selling processes that match their buying process as closely as possible.
In her book, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale
(Amazon affiliate link), Ardath Albee outlines a 7 step buying process.
- Status Quo – Beginning to experience a problem, but not ready to do anything about it
- Priority Shift – actively interested in learning what change might mean for their company
- Research – committed to resolving the problem and is focused on building a business case. Looking for experts and realistic outcomes he can plan for
- Options – Narrowing focus to develop a short list
- Step Backs –New information or concerns are causing hesitations
- Validation – Has a short list and needs to make sure his assumptions are true before making a final decision
- Choice – Ready to make a purchase decision
These steps serve as a framework to help you understand your customers buying process so that you can provide them with the information they need to move to the next step in their process.
Number 7 from the list above talks about the customer being ready to make a decision. If our job in our sales role is to help customers make a decision about whether our offerings can help solve their problems, we must know how they make decisions. Discovering the customers decision making process can be difficult as they often may be unaware that they have one. To help you discover the customer’s decision making process, pretend to be a journalist and find out:
Who – is involved in the decision making process. Is it one person or a committee. If it’s one person, who helps them make decisions like this?
When – will the decision be made? When will you be notified about the decision?
What – exactly will be decided upon. Are your services being purchased, or are they just deciding to approve a budget?
Why – would they decide to purchase your services? What is the one thing that will prevent them from working with you?
How – exactly does the decision get made. Is it by committee? Is it a formal RFP process? Will you be presenting to the decision makers or will the person you are working with be presenting to a group on your behalf?
Use these questions to learn as much as you can about the customers buying process. Don’t be afraid to dig deep for answers. The last thing you want to do is make assumptions on how the decision will be made only to find out later that you misunderstood the situation.
