How Buyers Make the Right Decision on the First Attempt

If you think selling B2B is challenging, you might not realize how difficult B2B buying is. When a buyer is required to make a rare decision they must get right on the first try, they worry about making a mistake that may harm their results and their status in their company. This list aims to help buyers engage with sales organizations and salespeople.

1. Determine the Strategic Outcomes: The first thing to get right is to determine the strategic outcomes you need. At this early stage of change, it's crucial to know what the outcomes must be for you to succeed. You know you have a challenge that needs to be addressed, and many salespeople will want to tell you their solution will solve your problem, but few will mention your strategic outcomes.
2. Brief the Senior Executives on Your Change Initiative: Your leadership team will find it easier to agree to your change initiative if you start with the strategic outcomes. Share your challenge with your leaders, explaining why what you're doing now is preventing the outcomes or results you're responsible for delivering. If the change initiative is critical, you may ask a senior leader to participate in the decision. You may also need to request a budget.
3. Research the Companies Who Provide the Outcomes: This isn’t easy in a world where there are more than enough companies providing the same solution. It's a mistake to look only at the largest companies, as they are often a better fit for other large companies that need a provider of the same scale. If you're not deciding for a national or global company, you may find boutique companies are designed to provide greater attention and a greater focus on your strategic outcomes.
4. Create a Scorecard to Assess the Potential Suppliers: This is not easy, but it can help you get your decision right on the first try. Sit down with your team and make a list of “must haves,” “nice to haves,” and deal-breakers. If you can convene in a room with a whiteboard, you should have three lists to consider. Your scorecard should be a work in progress, as you start having meetings and learning that there are new “must haves” and deal-breakers. You're still a long way away from a decision, but your scorecard will change all the way to your final decision. You may also adjust what is important.
5. Spend Time with Different Sales Organizations: If there's one thing that would help you get the decision right on the first attempt, it would be spending time with the salespeople the sales organizations send to you. It's a mistake to spend too little time with the salespeople, and it's also a mistake to sit down with too few sales organizations. Without spending time with salespeople, you may have trouble deciding on a fit. As an expert in sales, I suggest you give most of your time to the salespeople who are trying to help you better understand the decision and how to value certain decision factors. You may also reduce the time you give to salespeople who are unable to create value for you in the sales conversation.
6. Invite the Task Force to Participate in Early Conversations: When you and your team face a decision that requires consensus, leaving out people who will eventually have something to say can cause some of them to withhold their agreement. It's important that you control the change initiative, but if you want to succeed, it's better to allow people into the conversation. The more meetings you have with salespeople, the more those people fall behind, making it difficult for them to catch up. When you leave people out, it's easy for them to claim the moral high ground, as they were not allowed to have their say.
7. Engage the SMEs For Technical Requirements: In some change initiatives, the technical concerns need special attention. Some of the solutions may look like a good fit, until a subject matter expert (SME) engages with the salesperson or the salesperson’s SME. This is especially important when you and your team are not able to assess the technical details.
8. Eliminate Sales Organizations That Don’t Educate Your Team: By this time, you can cut any sales organization and their salesperson for failing to help educate you on the decision you will need to make. If you learned little about the decision from a salesperson, you are free to release them, as they failed to create the value you should expect from the sales conversation. It is the sales organization's responsibility to provide you with a salesperson who is an expert and authority.
9. Verify Company References: It's normal to verify the references the salesperson provided you. But most buyers tend to do this after they have decided who they want to buy from. You may improve your ability to get the decision right by doing this before you take a last look at the standouts and sharing what you heard from their clients.
10. Spend More Time with the Standouts: Let’s assume you have three companies you are still considering. Spend more time with them, focusing on deciding who is most likely to be the best fit and the one that you believe is going to ensure you get this decision right on the first attempt. When you have a difficult decision to make, even the scorecard might not make it any easier.