Is your sales strategy aligned with how your customers make purchasing decisions? Are you confident that you’re executing the selling activities that create value for your customers at each stage of their buying process?

It’s all too easy to let your selling strategy get weighed down by procedures and techniques.  We’ve seen many account strategies collapse because they became so complex that they forgot the basic fact that decisions are made by people.  All people—whether influencers, decision-makers, purchasing agents or evaluation committees—progress through discrete phases when they make decisions.  By understanding these stages and how to influence them, you’ll find it easier to form practical account strategies that move sales forward.

Effective selling begins with an understanding of how people buy.  All of Huthwaite’s sales improvement initiatives have at their core the buyer’s perspective—embodied in the Buying Cycle.

What follows below is a look at the stages of the Buying Cycle and brief descriptions of the role of the sales professional at each stage.

Changes over Time: This is the stage in which prospects have not yet recognized a need for change. Sellers (and their marketing departments) can help jump start the buying process by delivering provocative and compelling prospecting messages that help buyers appreciate potential challenges and opportunities.

Recognition of Needs:  During this stage, the people within an account become dissatisfied with their existing situation and begin to realize a need to solve a problem or exploit an opportunity. At this point, the role of the seller is to uncover the source of dissatisfaction and increase the buyers’ perception of its intensity and urgency. 

Evaluation of Options:  Once they’ve agreed on the need for change, buyers then start considering alternatives for resolving their dissatisfaction. Here, the sales professional’s job is to help the buyers understand how the selling organization can best address their needs. The really effective seller will influence in his or her favor the criteria the customer organization will use to evaluate competing vendors.

Resolution of Concerns:  In this stage, buyers tentatively select a vendor, but before signing the contract they will assess any associated risks and consequences. The seller’s course of action now is to uncover buyer concerns or fears and help resolve them.

Decision:  At this point, the deal is agreed upon and the contract is signed.

Implementation:  After the sale is made, the customer organization begins to introduce, test and install the seller’s solution. Buyers expect to receive the value promised by the seller and endeavor to realize a return on their investment. The seller’s responsibility is to help the customer adopt the solution and overcome any implementation challenges.

Changes over Time: The cycle does not end just because the customer organization is implementing a solution. Inevitably, there will be changes in the account—contacts may turn over, company strategy may change, reorganizations or mergers may occur. Each of these changes offers opportunities for the seller to strengthen the relationship by helping buyers anticipate and address additional problems and opportunities.

To learn more about the Buying Cycle, its application in today’s selling environment and how sellers can create real value at each stage, please Contact Us.  Also, you can read more about this topic in Neil Rackham’s Major Account Sales Strategy.