It is one of the most fundamental and important propositions in complex sales – you can’t sell if you don’t know how people buy. Ask any top-performing salesperson and they will paint a comprehensive picture of the customer’s buying process. Ask an average performer and they will provide only a sketch.
So what does the buying process look like? Is the buying cycle linear? The short answer is no. Customers’ decision making process is anything but linear. So, what can a salesperson do?
Stop assuming the buying process is a mirror image of your selling process. Most companies have a five or six stage selling process beginning with stages like need recognition and ending with stages such as resolution of concerns and proposal submission. The processes are almost always linear in depiction.
Another point – your customer may not start at the beginning of your sales process. For example, they may expect that you have a good understanding of their needs and hence will not want to go through an extended series of discovery conversations. Or they may have placed additional emphasis on a particular stage, like evaluation of options, so they can engage more people and committees in the buying process. When that happens, you’re stalled in that stage and don’t even know why.
Don’t get there too late with too little. In a Harvard Business Review article, Steve W. Martin reported on a win-loss analysis study. He found that “approximately 30% of the time, the winner of the sales cycle was determined before the ‘official’ selection process started. Another 45% of the time, customers had already made up their minds about whom they were going to buy from about halfway through the process. That means that 75% of the time, customers make their decision halfway through the process.” Consequently, you have to determine early on whether you are chasing a bad business opportunity. On the other hand, if it is the case where the race can still be won, you need to have a strong first half.
Stop assuming the present can be predicted from the past. Today we are living and selling in a time of compressed history. Changes driven by the global market and advances in manufacturing technologies make the past a bad predictor of the future. Companies in many industries are going through transformational changes that are impacting their buying process, and in some cases, their basic business model.
As a result, competitive advantages that once lasted a long time now disappear quickly. What you need to do during the sales process and how you do it has to be adjusted and fine-tuned to the new reality. If you want to prosper, assuming that what worked in the past will work in the present is a risky assumption.