Selling to Multiple Decision-Makers

Getting Past Positions

Perhaps the biggest challenge to multiple decision-makers reaching a decision is getting past the positions people take and getting to the true need they are trying to meet. When one decision-maker says they want X and another wants anything but X, the decision-making process comes to a grinding halt and no sale is possible.

For example, a salesperson we know was positioning a media marketing campaign to a customer. The VP of Sales and the Marketing Director were aligned in wanting an aggressive and expansive online and social media presence. However, the organization’s CFO said no because the cost was too high.

The salesperson realized that this created an impasse and that no purchase would be made with these conflicting positions. So, the salesperson began exploring the reasons why each held their positions (what we call the interests behind the position).

What the salesperson found out was the CFO was concerned about ROI; the projections for the number of new customers from social media marketing were not high enough to justify the level of investment requested by the VP of Sales and the Marketing Director.

The interests behind the VP of Sales and Marketing Director’s position were also clear. They see customers using social media to research vendors early in the buying process. The VP of Sales, for example, talked about a big deal they lost because the customer made a decision before they even met with their organization.

By understanding the interests behind the positions, this salesperson was then able to offer a campaign that included a more targeted social media presence based on researching their target industries. He was able to show that this approach would retain their projection of new customers while cutting the costs in half, making the ROI a net positive.

The salesperson is able to keep the decision-making process moving forward by exploring the reasons why they hold the positions—the interests behind the positions.

Getting to Interests requires good questioning skills. Positions are how people express what they want; Interests (often unstated) are why they want it. Good questions are how you uncover the Interests behind the Positions.

Managing the Decision Process: From Knowledge to Action

Now that you have gathered information to draw your Influence Map, and understand your buyer’s Interests, you need to put this knowledge into action.

The key is to use your knowledge of Interests to develop actions to influence each decision-maker based on where he or she falls on the Influence Map. There are four types of strategies: Convert, Capitalize, Promote, and Insulate.

To Convert a person with high levels of influence but a negative disposition, you need to ensure they know how your solution meets their priority interests.

This can often be accomplished by linking their interests to the interests of those high influencers who have a positive disposition to you, your company, or your solution.

Sometimes decision-makers with a negative disposition have interests tied to a relationship with a competitor. Finding out the nature of these interests can help you address them, or you can Insulate their interests from the key interests of high influencers to prevent them from slowing down the decision-making process.

You can also improve your position by Promoting the interests (showing the business value) of those with a positive disposition but lower levels of influence. This elevates their influence, thus elevating your solution.

Conclusion

The ability to effectively deal with multiple decision-makers can mean the difference between success and failure in your sales numbers. You can increase your chances of success by:

• Identifying Influence and drawing the Influence Map
• Getting Past Positions to the Interests
• Managing the Decision Process

Salespeople who master these three skills not only succeed more in selling but are also seen as a business consultant, helping their buying team reach agreement on the most important interests to be addressed. The ability to guide the forward progress of the customer’s decision-making provides additional business value to the customer, shortening the time to implementation and protecting the customer organization from opportunity costs of an unnecessarily drawn-out process.