I am a terrible sales guy, at least that is the story I typically sell to people. I am not going to try to discuss how to be a great sales person, I just don’t have those answers. This is intended as a primer for entrepreneurs to help you understand the sales process and the parties involved.

The first thing to think about when it comes to sales is: marketing. More specifically do you want to be a sales organization or a marketing organization.

Selling:

We have a product, we sell it to our customers. We advertise, discount, and promote to grow.

Marketing:

We understand the customers needs and wants. We market to them a solution. We focus on satisfying those customers with our solution to achieve growth.

A marketing organization begins with a dedication to the customer and a problem you can address. Not a dedication to a technology or a technology implementation. This can be a challenge as engineers can be passionate about what they have built. Have a look at my business development and product commercialization posts to learn more about that.

Decision Making Unit

Your customer is likely not just 1 person, but an entire team of players each with a specific role. This is predominantly the case in B2B but also for many consumer products. Rick Page covers this well in his book Hope is Not a Strategy. The various actors can be broken down into the categories: initiators, influencers, gatekeepers, buyers, deciders, users, and payers. Some or all may be present. They may be you, they may work for your customer, or they may be outsiders. Many sales will be lost ignoring gatekeepers or selling to users with no power to buy.

Understanding each role is important but most important is understanding who each person is at your customer’s organization 

Initiator:

The initiator is the one who brings the problem to the attention of your customers. Ideally this is some decision maker at your customer’s organization. It might be the customer’s customer asking for a new feature or improvement. This might be your sales team doing outbound marketing. If the latter is the case you have become a selling organization. You will have an uphill battle convincing the customer they need your solution as they didn’t need it before you called. Why do they need it now?

Influencers:

These are your customer’s peers, respected educators or researchers in their field, or journalists writing in trade publications. The government or industry groups might be a major influencer with policies, laws, or regulations. Getting influencers on your side is a major key to growing market share. You want to cultivate a crop of evangelists for your product so they can become positive influencers for you. That means great product management and being very responsive to customer feedback. If you are the talk of the  industry you will get meetings, inbound leads, and less friction in the approval process.

Gatekeepers:

Gatekeepers are important as they can stop the sales and approval process dead in its tracks with their concerns about value, safety, reliability, etc. The customer’s legal department, insurance company, or union could all be gatekeepers that are asked for their recommendations. You will need to predict and understand what concerns these gatekeepers may have. A good customer survey process early on in the development of your solution can start to identify their concerns. You may want marketing and sales materials to address these concerns and ensure that your sales team helps the customer sell internally.

Buyers:

Buyers evaluate the usefulness of our product or service. They may be the user or may manage the users. The bottom line is they are intimately familiar with the processes at play and the problems you are solving. They will be evaluating your solution in a very real way and will decide between you, a competitor, or a substitute. They also tend to negotiate rates.

Deciders:

In a small organization the decider is likely the buyer. In a larger organization it is likely a more senior manager who is responsible for the budget or financial performance of the unit. They will assimilate the information from the buyers, gatekeepers, and influencers and make the final call. They don’t need to understand the details of your solution but they need to be comfortable with its value, legality, reliability, and safety. They have a fiduciary duty to make a sound choice.

Users:

Users are the ones who work with your solution on a daily basis. They will evaluate its performance and report back to the buyers. Users may be connected on social media or through industry associations. Outspoken users may become influencers. They may even cross over to being gatekeepers if a labor union is involved. If you have a renewable subscription or contract, the users feedback will play a role in that renewal.

Payers:

Payers are usually not called out separately in the decision making unit as typically they cross over with one of the other roles. They might be simply a decider, buyer, or gatekeeper who has budget authority and therefor is examining the value of your solution. The payer could also be a customer of your customer, or it could be a grant or subsidy from the government. If the costs of your solution are to be passed on, you may need to have a deep understand of your customer’s business model and market. If you can find a government subsidy or insurance discount that helps reduce or eliminate the cost of your solution, this can significantly accelerate the approval process.

In conclusion, knowing the structure of the decision making unit, and who plays each role, is key to sales and marketing. Your organization will need to address the needs of each to close the sale.