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Strategic Selling Means get to the Right Decision Maker

Posted by Michael Wolf on Tue, Sep 01, 2009 @ 11:24 AM
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Are You Selling the Real Decision Maker?

wolfBy Michael Wolf, Global Partners Director

It may be a simple question, but in my more than 20 years of executive level sales management experience I have heard to many times how sales people answer this initially with a "yes", only to change it to a "I guess not" after they have lost the sale. This especially amazes me in today's business environment where winning every deal can be critical to the survival of a business.

These days, knowing who is making the final purchase decision is more important than ever. More decisions are being made at higher levels, typical decision makers may have moved on to a new position, or his/her sign-off level may have been reduced. And, as all successful sales people know, if you are not selling to the REAL decision maker, you won't make the sale.

Organization Decision Mapping (ODM) is a unique tool that enables sales and account managers to identify the decision maker in your customer's organization, gain access to him or her, and influence them positively toward your product or service.

To access an article describing ODM and a case study exercise you can use to test your ability to get to the Real Decision Maker, click here.

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Comments

In these times, when sales are even harder to come by, it is more critical than ever to make sure the efforts spent are directed towards the one who really makes the decision. This is also the acquired skill I have found most lacking in otherwise talented salespeople.
Posted @ Tuesday, September 01, 2009 8:31 PM by Tom Levesque
Two comments - 
 
First having the demo system installed with no clear decision points or pass / fail criteria is one I have seen a lot. Either the customer refuses to make up pass / fail or they continuously raise the bar after the 'pass' items have been met. I think there is a common mistake to set up this criteria with engineers only to find later it is a VP with budget that really holds the pass critera.  
 
Secondly, we have found the relationship item one of interest. We no longer really focus on the relationship of the account manager with the particular customer contacts, but map that someone in our organization has a very good one(willing to trade favors or at a minimum exchange ideas off the record). Part of the sales process is getting these people involved (even if it is not their product group) as the relationship they have holds the value in the process. This has opened up more internal people within our company to link to customers in multiple ways.
Posted @ Friday, September 04, 2009 12:24 PM by Ann Jenkins
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