by Jim Cantrell, President & CEO, SSD
 Who makes the actual award decision on any procurement? The contracting officer? The technical evaluation committee leader? How about the system operators that will have to use your product or service? If you answered yes to any of the above, you would most likely be wrong. Almost all selling situations will involve groups of people evaluating your proposal and yet only one person makes the decision on the award. That person is known as the economic buyer and will likely be highly placed in the organization making the procurement decision. In my experience, most capture managers and BD professionals do not understand this fact in the business process.
The true economic buyer is often hidden from your view but finding that true decision maker in the procurement process is an essential part of making the sale. It will be the economic buyer’s yes or no that will determine who gets the contract despite recommendations from a committee assembled to study the options and offers. Getting your bid to the top of the decision maker’s preferred list requires that you identify him and understand his true needs and requirements. Diagramming the source selection or sale will create a corresponding decision tree that will identify the gate keepers, internal coaches, and ultimately, the economic buyer.
The one who has the ultimate decision authority in a sale or procurement can sometimes be a lower-level engineer but is more often a senior-level position within a company or agency. The economic buyer will not need to get decision approval by anyone else and will often take recommendations from a group of technical specialists who have studied the proposals and options. Such a team will be reacting to the economic buyer’s influence and requirements. The economic buyer will typically have a problem that needs to be solved or a need that has to be fulfilled.
For a successful sale, it is imperative that you locate and meet with the economic buyer. This contact is essential to establish a personal contact and rapport but more importantly to understand what the true needs are and the exact nature of the problem. Remember, you are selling a solution to the economic buyer’s predicament—not a widget. The economic buyer’s predicament will be strategic in nature and your solution needs to appeal to that strategic sense in order to win.
The economic buyer will not likely be the first person that you will talk to on a procurement or sale. A typical scenario will have the economic buyer supported by a cast of people who all will act in specific roles supporting the decision process. The most common roles that you will encounter are the technical support or expertise, gatekeepers, and a trusted agent of the economic buyer. The three characteristics of the economic buyer will be identifiable as the one who has final authority to authorize money, is highly placed in the organization and has direct responsibility over funding this activity. The economic buyer will think and make decisions in a strategic universe. Thus, if you are not selling in this strategic universe, you are not selling your product or service.
Imposters will tell you that they are the economic buyer but are in reality acting as gatekeepers to the economic buyer. Often these individuals act out of a sense of self importance but are occasionally acting as a trusted agent of the economic buyer or simply do not understand the complex decision environment that they are working in.
It is imperative to locate and contact the economic buyer by diagramming the procurement team. While this may not always be straight forward, you can begin by asking simple questions of the people involved in the sale, which include:
• What is your role in this decision?
• Are you recommending a solution or making the decision?
• What budget does this purchase ultimately come from?
• Is there anyone above you who will have to approve this decision?
• If you are making the final decision, does this come out of a budget that you control?
The answers to these questions will help you diagram the sale. An individual providing technical support to the decision will almost always tell you that they are the economic buyer but they will not possess the characteristics mentioned.
Often, other buying influences inside the procurement will become your advocate within the organization and will help guide you through the complex procurement by providing you with an insider’s view of the needs and your company’s standing with respect to the competition. This inside coach is imperative to gaining access to the economic buyer and to identify the relative roles of other individuals involved in the procurement or sale. Use these inside coaches if you can locate them and have them help you identify the economic buyer, understand his or her real concerns and objectives, and to get an introduction to this key decision maker.
By locating and working with the economic buyer, you will greatly enhance your chances of a successful sale and can make your bid address both the technical and strategic objectives that your customer is thinking about.
Next month's free hour webinar will be, "Time to Sale: Your Achilles Heal", covering how to diagram the buying influences in a sale and to map the data that you may or may not have on each of the influences.
Please visit our website, www.bdcourses.com, to register.
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