How to Identify Decision Makers | Sales Management Selling Skills

A few years ago, I purchased a toy for my son. I had invested an hour or so trying it out and talking to the clerk at Toys-R-Us and was proud of the decision I had made. The sales clerk thought he had made a sale. But to my surprise and disappointment, my son wasn’t interested in the toy at all. He didn’t thank me or acknowledge my hard work. As it turned out, a couple of his friends had the same toy and hated it.

A few days later, I returned the toy to the store. The pride of my decision making was extinguished. Both the sales clerk and I learned a valuable selling lesson that day: to make a sale requires that all decision influencers come to terms with the decision.

Dealing with Multiple Decision Makers

So it goes in the businesses we serve. There are few decision makers, only decision influencers. From the smallest business to the largest organization, decisions to engage your services are made by multiple individuals.

As the businesses to which you are selling grow larger, the number of decision influencers increases. As the number of influencers increases, the complexity of the sale grows. To improve your selling success in large organizations, you must identify and persuade all the decision influencers.

The relative power held by a person in a particular position in one company usually will be quite different in another organization. The decision process and the relative power of specifics decision influencers can vary greatly in businesses of the same type and size.

Conclusion

When selling to organizations, it is crucial to identify and persuade all the decision influencers. Professionals who routinely cover only one of the decision influencers sell substantially less than their share of the business. For example, a professional who makes 10 proposals and has two competitors on each should sell one in three, or 33%, if he is getting his share. However, we find that sellers who meet with only one buying influencer will get a 10–15% share while sellers who meet with several decision influencers score in the 40% to 70% range.