Getting in the door is getting harder and harder, so making the most of every time you do get through the door is becoming more and more important.
Over the years, I have seen many salespeople and business owners taking big risks with important deals by talking to only one person in the prospect company. A common outcome of this kind of “single threading” is “radio silence” after a proposal is submitted—no returned calls or emails, and ultimately no deal.
It does not have to be this way. Once we realize that all sizable B2B deals have multiple people involved in the buying process (research from companies like Gartner put the average number of people in a complex purchase at 6.8), we can change our sales approach to one that maximizes our chances of winning.
One framework for progressing sales opportunities that I have had a lot of success with is described in Robert Miller and Stephen Heiman’s book “Strategic Selling” (now called New Strategic Selling.) In this framework there are four types of people involved in a complex sale.
- The economic buyer
- The users
- The gatekeepers
- The coach
1. The economic buyer
The economic buyer is the person we typically focus on. This is the person that signs the contract—and maybe the check when you have a deal. The economic buyer in most companies of any size is hard to reach. They typically have a lot of screening in place. In a small company the economic buyer is likely the CEO or president. In a larger company, they might be a department or business unit head.
2. Users
The users are the users of your type of product or service. For example, if you sell a CRM or sales training solution, the users would be all the salespeople. There can be many users. Users can be very useful to salespeople. By talking to users you may be able to find out what is wrong with their current situation and what they might like to see in the future.
3. Gatekeepers
Gatekeepers are people whose job it is to protect the prospect company. If you sell any kind of technology or technology-enabled solution, people from the IT department may often volunteer to be included in your sales conversations. In most cases, they are doing this to check that what you have fits with their technical environment and trying to discern if what you have is credible and will actually work! Be careful with gatekeepers. When I first started out selling IT services. I accepted the idea from an IT person to bring a dozen of their IT colleagues to lunch at our company. What ensued was a free lunch for some of the IT department where most of the time was spent trying to pick holes in our offerings and showing how smart they were.
4. The Coach
There’s one more type of person involved in the buying process per the Miller and Heiman process. This is a special type of person that does not automatically come with every opportunity. This is also the most important type person for you as a salesperson, or business owner, trying to win a sizable deal. This person is a “coach.” I’ll talk about them more next time.
Summary
- Getting in the door is getting harder and harder, so making the most of every time you do get through the door is becoming more and more important.
- Salespeople and business owners take big risks with important deals by only talking to one person in a company.
- Miller and Heiman’s sales framework describes four types of people involved in buying high-value services or products. These are: the economic buyer, the users, the gatekeepers, and the coach.