Application Article
Summer 2007
57
Want to Win the Sales?
Stop Playing the Purchasing Game
By Mark Shonka and Dan Kosch, Impax Corporation
These days, the sales game is dramatically
more challenging because the playing field is
overrun with powerful purchasing professionals. Just a few years ago, they were relegated
to a back office. Today, they’ve been elevated
to the executive suite.
Attaining the lowest price is their greatest objective and they couldn’t be better equipped to
make that happen with everything from process initiatives that streamline sourcing procedures to buying consortiums to online vendor
auctions where the lowest bidder sins increasingly more complex RFP’s.
If all of these vehicles fail to score bigger margins for the purchasing company, they call in
procurement consultants who promise to save
significantly more money than their fees. Recently a Fortune 500 sales executive went
hear-to-head with a purchasing consultant
who was addressing the Fortune 500 company’s top management.
Here is an excerpt of that conversation:
“You’ve got to stop the spread of sales!” exhorted the purchasing consultant. “You have
to do everything you can to stop salespeople
from selling value. Block them from speaking
with decision makers. Force them to the bottom line!” The Fortune 500 company management was stunned by what this expert was
saying to the organization’s leadership. “But
we teach our salespeople to sell value” explained the Fortune 500 executive.
“Well, you cannot afford to buy it,” retorted
the purchasing consultant.
Traditionally, selling has focused on winning
over purchasing with the best products or services at the best price. The assumption is: you
will move beyond bidding contests into an
arenas where decisions are made based on
what will most benefit the organization (value)
as opposed to what will save the most money
on products/services (commoditization).
For most selling companies this is not a great
strategy. Here is why: sourcing professionals
(purchasing agents) are becoming more and
more adept at getting your lowest price while
keeping you in the vendor trap and away from
the line decision makers.
Progressive companies are taking control by
starting a new game-one where the seller
makes the rules by going directly to the executive who make decisions on what will best
achieve their business objectives, not necessarily cost the least.. It is not the purchasing
agents fault; they are being paid based on how
much they save the company in the shortterm. Promoting the big picture, such as
long-term return on investment or efficiencies
created by more streamlined processes, is not
the purchasing agents job. That really is the
salesperson’s job. In today’s harsh marketplace you have one choice: do your job and
pay close attention to how you are selling and
who you are selling to or become a commodity.
At first glance, it would appear that bypassing
purchasing to reach the decision makers
would be a sure-fire way to sudden sales
death. Conversely, not doing so will eventually transform you from a key resource to the
customer to a mere pawn who just quotes
prices. The latter is deadly for a selling company’s bottom line as well as the salesperson’s
career.
Your best defence against price shopping and
commoditization is developing relationships
with the decision makers. These are the people
who ultimately approve the purchase orders,
Vol. 7, No. 3
58
Journal of Selling & Major Account Management
not the ones who submit them. There are
proven methods and processes that help enable salespeople to win business based on
business value and not lowest price. The Impax process of selling value not price is described below.
Selling value starts with doing RESEARCH.
Salespeople need to gather data from public
sources and information from an insider’s perspective if they want to better understand the
prospect’s business beyond a simple needs
analysis. Data from public sources like annual
reports and articles written about the company
can help a salesperson learn about industries
and get a stronger grasp of the customer’s
business objectives, strategies and issues.
To assist in the research phase, salespeople
need a coach. This person is someone within
the prospect’s organization who as access to
key information and is eager to give it to the
salesperson because if you help the organization (you win) and the organization wins (he/
she wins). Finding a coach sometimes requires networking savvy and investigative
know how, but they can give you and edge in
making the process work because they provide
the information you cannot find anywhere
else. Interact with these potential coaches to
gain an insider’s perspective on the prospect’s
business.
An example might illustrate how these two
steps can be accomplished. Consider Adam
Smrokowski, a national account manager for
York International, a division of Johnson
Controls. All Adam had to do to find coaches
was to pick up the phone and call various contacts to schedule research meetings. “I explained that I wanted to make sure that I had
a clear understanding of their business and
needs,” says Adam. “It worked very well and
they were open to meeting with me instead of
trying to prevent or discourage the meeting.”
These first interactions took Adam to the second
step in the Impax process-Communication.
Northern Illinois University
This step is where you leverage your research
to launch yourself over the gatekeepers and
evaluators to reach the real decision makers.
Adam used his network of people contacted
in the research step to get to the engineering
department. By doing this he ended up reviewing the technical aspects of their heating
and cooling systems with several engineers
over the next three months. During that time
he did not once mention his own product.
Instead he asked insightful business questions
and solution oriented questions about what
motivated their decisions. The engineers were
so impressed with Adam’s diligence he was
able to network his way to a meeting with the
vice president who would eventually be the
one to sign the purchase order.
At this point you are ready for the third step
of the IMPAX Process- Presentation. This is
where you stand before the decision maker
and demonstrate your business fit. That is
how a relationship with you and your company can help them achieve business objectives, address key issues and implement priority strategies.
“Finding out the priorities of the engineers
who will approve your product is smart but it
is not enough. You will eventually have to
learn what drives the executive level decision
maker as sell,” Adam points out. “This is especially true when you are selling a complex
product with a multitude of features and benefits. When you are presenting to the executive
level you do not want to waste their time.
You have to be concise and talk about what
they care about most. By following these
steps you are able to find out what drives
them so that you can create a presentation
that addresses their issues specifically thus not
wasting their time.” It does work because
thirty days later Adam was presented with a
multimillion dollar a contract to provide the
heating and cooling systems for one of the
US’s largest retailers.
Application Article
Summer 2007
59
“Before learning and using this process, my
first inclination might have been to respond to
the RFP with a treatise on the quality of our
product,” Explains Adam. “Through the use
of this process I learned that the more specifically I can pinpoint what drives the prospect
and respond specifically to that, the more
likely I am going to succeed. I realize that it is
not what you sell that wins the deals but it is
what you know about your customer’s
business.”
By using the three step process explained here,
Adam not only launched himself past the
gatekeepers to win the account; he brought
genuine value to his customer’s organization.
Which brings us to the final and most important point: playing the purchasing game
will hurt your customers. Unfortunately
purchasing agents believe that the only benefit
sales professionals bring to the table is
product knowledge. Instead, a good sales
professional brings this product knowledge
along with process knowledge, industry expertise, and operational insight that can help their
customers see their business from an entirely
new and more profitable perspective. To
thrive in today’s marketplace, sales professionals need to be more than product knowledge
experts.
When this happens everybody wins!
Mark Shonka and Dan Kosch
Co-presidents of Impax , a leading sales performance
improvement company. They are the authors of Beyond Selling Value, a top 40 book of the year by
Business Book Review. Contact information: website
www.impaxcorp.com or call 1-800-457-4727
Vol. 7, No. 3