Who Makes The Decision to Buy?

By Julie Thomas


Committees or People?

It is an interesting dilemma facing many sales executives. Task forces and committees are often created and empowered to make purchasing decisions for many organizations. So how do sales professionals handle these seemingly amorphous collections of perspectives when trying to sell their products and services?

Last month during a webcast attended by many ValueSelling clients, I made the following statement:

Of all the comments and issues discussed during the webcast, that particular statement created a firestorm of comments, questions, and conflicting opinions.

Let's take a look at what is happening with many of our prospects and customers to understand how we can be more effective.

Many organizations have experienced the agony of an individual's bad decision. Whether the decision was made for the right reasons or the wrong reasons, often enough data wasn't collected, enough alternatives investigated, or enough risk mitigated through individual decision processes. In response to that reality, the decision making process has been broadened in many businesses. The idea is that if more people look at alternatives, give perspective on the solutions, and evaluate the options - the overall risk to the organization will be mitigated.

Often these committees are made of individuals from different business units, departments and with varying management or technical expertise. They all approach the solution from a different perspective. As sales professionals selling to these groups - our success will depend on understanding each of the people involved in this decision and their perspective. Committees are collections of people with a specific task or purpose. But it is the people on the committees who get the work done and will ultimately make things happen. If the outcome is a successful sale for you - we need to gain access to each individual involved.

In my experience, there have been two types of committees that I have worked with in the past. The first I will refer to as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." In this type of group, there is one key leader who will ultimately be making the decision. He or she, "Snow White," may delegate different aspects of the research, evaluation, and interacting with suppliers and vendors to the "Seven Dwarfs" but the ultimate decision will be made by him or her. In this case, it is critical for the sales professional to gain access to Snow White. Without insight to his or her view and a complete understanding of what is important to that individual, a sales cycle with just the dwarfs could be at risk.

So here are a couple of traps to avoid in this scenario.

1. Don't take everything a dwarf tells you at face value as truth. In these sales scenarios - the best facts are those that come directly from the power person, in this Snow White. Negotiate access with who you do have access to gain access to the power person.
2. Don't kid yourself that without access to power, your deal will be approved unconditionally by anyone in the organization. Decisions rarely get made in business that way.

The second type of committee could actually be made up of a peer group. In these types of scenarios, each individual on the committee has to be treated as they are Power as you go through the sales cycle. Until you understand each person's perspective on the business issues and problems they are trying to address and each individual's view of the right solution or approach you will be at risk that your solution will not win the consensus vote of approval. When you are dealing with a committee of peers, you will also be dealing with as many individual motivations and agendas as names on the committee roster.

To be most successful in these types of selling situations, we want to negotiate individual access to each of the people involved in influencing the final outcome or buying decision. It is our goal to treat each individual as the powerful player on the committee. We will want to work hard to understand each individual’s perspective and motivation so we can use that to create urgency and position our capabilities in the context each individual will best understand.

One of the ValueSelling principles is that people make emotional decisions for logical reasons. When dealing with a committee, we need to gain access to the people involved to best understand our position, create need for our uniqueness, and motivate each individual to select us!

About the Author Julie Thomas is President and CEO of ValueVision Associates. Julie has been in sales and sales management for over 19 years and is a noted public speaker, author and consultant. www.ValueSelling.com