Danger Will Robinson – You’re Approaching Procurement

I wasn’t a big fan of Lost in Space. I watched the TV series as a kid and skipped the movie. If we had 300 channels back then instead of 4, I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have watched a single episode, but for a show that never really grabbed me, that “Danger, Will Robinson” line still shows up in my head more often than “Houston, we have a problem.”

I’ve been coaching salespeople and sales leaders for more than forty years. And when you consider half of them begin not wanting to be coached, it’s harder than it sounds! When they describe a deal that’s gone sideways, it usually takes about ten seconds to recognize a certain pattern. They’re not only talking to the wrong person, it’s worse. They’re talking to a professional buyer. And they’re in a runner in scoring position with nobody out in the bottom of the ninth inning of a tie game kind of trouble. Read, Why Reaching Decision Makers Is the Curve Ball Most Salespeople Can’t Hit

It’s not that you can’t win the business. It’s that buyers and problem owners are paid to care about different things. When I hear the symptoms, the Will Robinson line is the one that plays. I have to admit that why salespeople keep putting themselves in this situation “does not compute.”

Like parents, Buyers can always say no. They can’t always say yes. That’s the first and biggest problem. Their job is to control cost, reduce risk to the company, and protect themselves from being blamed for a bad decision. They are not measured on whether the plant runs more efficiently, whether the new system actually gets used, or whether the design team stops fighting the software. Those outcomes belong to someone else.

The rest of the problems flow from that one.

The problem the buyer wants to solve is price. The VP of Engineering, the Plant Manager, the IT Director, and the Operations leader want something else: quality, speed, uptime, ease of use, training time, little disruption, responsiveness, continuity, privacy, risk mitigation. When the buyer pushes hard enough on price, the solution that actually fixes the problem gets stripped down until it no longer does the job. The buyer doesn’t feel that pain. The problem owner does.

Buyers also want apples-to-apples comparisons so price becomes the only difference that matters. That forces vendors to quote the cheapest version of what they sell. The capabilities that actually differentiate you get left on the cutting-room floor. If you started with the buyer, you often never get the chance to show the problem owner why those capabilities matter. Your best capabilities can only be viewed in the director’s cut.

Buyers also have a false sense of power and they use it. “If you can’t match this price, I have no use for you.” “If you won’t do that for me, we’re done.” A lot of salespeople freeze. A lot of them give in. Very few of them recognize that the person saying those things usually doesn’t have the authority to approve the solution the company actually needs.

These problems are baked in if you start with procurement.

You might still be fine if you end up there.

You’ve already completed the sales cycle. You’ve recommended the right solution. The person who owns the problem wants to buy from you and sends the request to purchasing. At that point one of three things usually happens:

• They create a PO and send it.
• They put together an RFP and send it to you and four other vendors. Read, New Data: Top Salespeople are 7562% Better at Winning RFPs
• They call you to renegotiate the price and terms your prospect already agreed to.

The first outcome is rare. The second and third are common. Most salespeople never ask, early enough, what will happen when the request hits purchasing. They find out after the damage is done.

Here’s the conversation that changes the odds. You say it to the person who already said yes, before the handoff:

“Bill, you just agreed to work with me. How important is that to you?”

Then: “In my experience, if you simply send this to purchasing, they’ll ask for specs, change the requirements, send it out for bid, and award it to the low bidder on a stripped-down version. Is that what you want?”

Then: “If you want this solution, and you want it from us, you’ll need to tell purchasing that these requirements stay as written and that you want it from my company. No exceptions.”

That’s it. You’re not asking the buyer to do your job. You’re asking the person who already chose you to protect the decision they just made.

Read, The Importance of Decision Makers in an Uncertain Economy

Salespeople love to complain about buyers. Some of them even claim they have relationships with buyers. A few get the famous “last look,” which usually means they can keep the business if they’re willing to match the lowest price and accept the lowest margin. None of that changes the underlying incentives.

Buyers get more training than most salespeople. They have clearer metrics. Many of them are measured—and sometimes paid—on the savings they deliver. Of course they behave the way they do. Their scoreboard is different from yours and different from the problem owner’s.

So the rules are simple:

1. Avoid starting with purchasing.
2. When the handoff happens, your prospect—not you—needs to be the one who deals with them.
3. Once you are talking only to purchasing, they will rarely let you back in front of the problem owner or the budget owner.
4. If the deal is already with them, get your original prospect to step back in and protect the requirements and the preference.

You can still win business that ends up in procurement. You just can’t count on winning it the same way you would if you had stayed with the person who actually has the problem. Danger, Will Robinson. You’re approaching procurement. Handle it like you know what that means.