Knowing the 4 decision makers in your customer’s buying centre

Everything seemed to be going smoothly for Sam. It seemed as though he is on the verge of closing a huge sales account. After all, there weren't any objections raised throughout the sales process and the customer had been very friendly towards him. Unfortunately for Sam, he was dejected to find out only towards the end that the contract he had been eyeing for several months was ultimately awarded to a competitor! Does this sound familiar to you? According to a more recent study conducted on more than 230 buyers, 12% of salespeople are excellent, 23% good, 38% average, and 27% poor! Worse, it seems that the underperforming salespeople neither lack the self-awareness to know that buyers don’t value them nor do they understand why. Rather, they would often push the blame to factors which are out of their control. You see. If there's a skill that every sales professional ought to possess to close large business accounts, it is the ability to identify, study and sell to the buying centre.

What is a buying centre?

So what is a buying centre? A buying centre refers to the group of individuals who are responsible for making the buying decisions in large organizations, whether they are playing the role directly or indirectly. When you are able to identify who these people are and what their individual values are and the part they play in the buying decision, you would then be able to sell more effectively to them, increasing your chances of closing the account significantly. And they are namely the endorser, elector, evaluator and the end user.
Endorser: This is the person in your customer's organization who ultimately approves the purchase. He/she is likely to be someone who holds a senior position in the customer's organisation. While this person may have a huge say in the buying decision, it may not be wise for a salesperson to approach the endorser directly and alienate the rest of the people in buying centre. Very often you may find it more helpful to get others in the buying centre to sell internally to the endorser.
Elector: While the endorser is the person who ultimately approves the buying decision, there's someone known as the elector who plays a key role in the customer decision making process too. In fact, it is often the elector who calls the shot and decides if you are going to get the business. Thus it is crucial that you build a strong relationship with the elector and teach or equip him/her with the tools to sell internally.
Evaluator: Next we have someone known as the evaluator. Unlike the Endorser and Elector, this is usually someone who is involved in making only part of the buying decision. He/she could be someone in the finance, IT, HR or operations department. While this person is not able to make decision on his/her own, it is still important not to neglect the evaluator because he/she can still have a say in the buying decision. The evaluator can either say no or make recommendations if he/she likes what you are able to offer. It is nonetheless important to avoid making the mistake that most salespeople tend to make when they tend to focus all their efforts on selling just to the evaluators and not doing a study of the rest of the buying centre.

End user: At last, we have someone known as the end user, who may not have a direct influence in the buying decision. Yet this person could play a part in determining if you are going to get any future orders from your customer's organisation. Thus you should always solicit the help of the end user, as he/she can help you make a better case for your solution, or tweak your solution to better value add to your customer's organisation.

To conclude, here are the four parties in the buying centre you will need to study and learn to sell more effectively to your customer's organisation- the Endorser, the Elector, the Evaluator and the End-User. There is another person I have left out here who is known as an influencer and this person will also play more of an indirect role in the decision making process.

Learn to map out all the Buying Center roles in your customer's organisation and identify what each of them value, as this will be how you could take the next major step towards achieving your breakthrough in B2B complex selling.

Celebrating your Awesomeness, Jacky Lim