All people have a buying process. Think about the last time shopping you went. You sought new boxer shorts, as you strolled into the men’s area of the haberdashery, a laser guided torpedo, no, a sales woman steamed towards you. And you say, “Just looking thanks.” Even though your current holey boxer draw needed new blood bad.
Or the time, desiring to see high definition blood dripping down from your favorite quarterback’s face, you power walked into the HD section of Best Gismo Buy. The knowledgeable sales guy, described all which you could care less about, like pixels, resolution, and facial hair telemetry, as you said, “Just looking,” even as you tasted chicken wings, while watching full NFL smashups in High Def, mega pixel, full hair telemetry.
You were quickly calculating the per inch cost of the Super Tuberster from Walmart as your brain did comparison gymnastics to the current beauty sitting, shining, right in front of you. Math major you were not, “What is 50 inches divided by 2 Grand compared to 60 inches divided by 2456 bucks. Or is it 2 grand divided by 50?” Hmm.
Back to your buying process. Yes you have one; we all do. Professional salesmen are no different and some wise guys even say sales guys are best tippers and the easiest to sell to. Yet, good buyers we all are, worse by far, are our selling techniques.
Salesmen drop fast battered by quiet murmurings from prospects like, “Boy, 117 is all? I expected more brick and mortar retail sporting goods and women swimwear customers to grace your Customer power point slide number 13.” And the chop block our knees feel, wing-tips giving in the carpet, and a whooooeee that was close to anterior cruciate bye-bye mind fleeting thought, as the prospect gently states, “Sorry you were rated 17th after deep internal review and introspection of our 456 question RFI masterpiece, oh, I mean document.” Dang, these technology buyers must get paid per RFI question. What other explanation might there be?
Thinking bad thoughts like, lost again, the sales dweeb listens and registers as tablets from the Lord all the prospect says. The sales guy, latest book full of pencil sketches about body language tells, sees arms crossed and cell stuck to ear VP of BigOneGettingAway Corp., and reads failure. But fail we do not. Our crusty sales guy, knees hurting, ego low ebbing, but skin rhinoceros thick, persists and says, ” I bet you tell all the sales guys that, huh, Mr. Please Like Me Guy?” Crusty sales guy knows. Knows what you may wonder but knows the buyer’s buying process, fine tuned like a pilots pre-flight routine, is being displayed in full color today, in this conference room.
The prospect is on stage, Full regalia flying, and full steam ahead. In his element he is, because he has 17 projects on his plate, each more important than any other to the business sponsor and he has sat through 44 vendor presentations in the last 10 days. He gave up golf, no time, he quit drinking the last time he couldn’t find his car at the go go girl club, so vendor ball breaking is his number one source of pleasure.
Please remember, this is an IT technology buyer of whom we speak and his life consists of how cool Windows 7 icons are and wringing vendors, desperate for biz, in his pudgy little hands. So give him his pleasure, let him go home and tell the scary little woman how he beat the hell out of another smuck salesman, and ignore his pocket protector, propellor head butt. Just keep on selling.
