Removing Risk: Status Quo & Indecision
Understanding Buyer Motivation
“You have no idea how much work it’s been to socialize this across brand, ops, digital, IT, and procurement teams.”
This is what my champion just told me. He was a newly appointed digital lead with a dotted line into the CDO of Novartis. He was moving through hell and high water to get our product socialized, and implemented, during a POC for a critical brand launch. He had aspirations to operationalize this across the org.
We just finished meeting in person after a grueling IT call that, with his help, ended up moving the needle in the sales cycle *that* much closer to getting the deal inked.
Long story short: Happy ending.
For me, the deal was won with a massive new logo and tons of upside across brands in the portfolio. For him, a huge win internally both for coming off of a successful launch and now massive demand for a new product that had his stamp on it. He also received a nice bottle of scotch after signature. Courtesy of yours truly.
I bring this up after reading this tweet from GetATechSalesJ
Source: Twitter GetATechSalesJob
It’s a solid shout out.
This is the reality of any buying cycle, in good times and in bad. With today’s macro economic environment, dollars are heavily scrutinized.
How do you combat this?
Source: Twitter BowTiedSalesGuy
Simply put, it’s understanding motivation and the emotions behind it. Think about being in the buyer’s shoes for just a moment …
Imagine you’ve done 24 years at Novartis and you’re already thinking about retiring to Florida. Are you going to stick your neck out on something that “might” be better than the status quo? Potentially risk getting fired, or have your internal reputation smeared if things go south?
Are you going to want to go through the mountain of paperwork and arduous process with finance, procurement, and legal, that’s needed to get something across the line?
Have you done this before? Do you have the courage the political capital at an org to get something like this done?
Sellers deal with this day in and day out. For buyers, that’s not always the case. Even if you’re dealing with an experience buyer, you still need to understand what’s motivating them outside of just ROI and business case.
The good news is that you can use this to your advantage:
Source: Twitter BowTiedSalesGuy
Source: Twitter Hacking Sales
In his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman found that there are two systems in which humans make decisions:
System 1: (our animal mind) fast, instinctive, and emotional
System 2: slow, deliberate, and logical
System 1 is FAR more influential.
It’s not just about qualifying product and budget. Yes, these are important to get the sale done from a logical perspective. But remember, *people* are ALWAYS the messiest variable. Decisions, especially large ones, are drowned in a sea of emotion.
So it’s always important to ask:
Are they willing to stick their neck out?
Do they even want to embark on this journey with you?
Have they done this before? If they haven’t do they want to?
Can you help guide them through this process?
What else is tied to their success (ie bonus, promotion, internal clout)?
EMOTIONS drive decisions.
The more you understand that. The more you understand the process. The more you can peel back the layers and qualify even further. If your buyer is still moving forward, it’s on you to take the assertive frame and guide them through the process.
Even if you’re dealing with a saavy veteran buyer, they’ll be more comfortable knowing you’ve done this before. This naturally turns into a partnership. The frame changes from “you”, to “us”. At that point you’ll become a trusted consultant, not just another sales guy.
Keep asking the tough questions.
As always, thanks you for reading and see you next week.
-Andrew Kobylarz