Complex Buying Groups: Covering All The Bases - Podcast Recording

Automated Transcript

Alastair Cole 0:05

Hello, good afternoon and welcome to The Sales Scoop. This is a show for startups who want to improve how they sell. Every episode, we bring you the shiniest pearls of wisdom from experienced sellers and tackle the hottest topics in sales. I'm Alastair Cole, your host for today and a co-founder of The Uplift Partnership. I'm a computer scientist and software engineer with two decades experience in b2b sales and marketing. And I'm delighted today to bring in my friend and b2b sales expert, Kiran. Hi.

Kiran Gill 0:45

Hi, Alastair. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Kiran Gill, I am co-founder and director of The Uplift Partnership, as well as Alastair. I've got two decades of b2b experience in business development and in sales operation.

Alastair Cole 1:03

Thank you, and together with our CTO, Douglas, we are The Uplift Partnership, we accelerate sales for startups. And today's topic is complex buying groups and covering all the bases. Really important when you're selling into larger deals, enterprise sales, and, and it's a really human thing. You know, buying groups are about people there about people's individual motivations, their wants their needs, the different roles they play within the buying group, but also within the company. And whether they play nicely or have difficulty with each other. Kiran, tell us a little bit about when you would expect as a seller to first get involved with or see a complex buying group.

Kiran Gill 1:56

I think with complex buying groups, you're looking at as your sales process, you're looking quite early on that your first engagement will come in with maybe only one or two potential people from the buying group itself. Initially, you'll talk with just one person. So as the meeting or as you start engaging with the customer, you're going to start engaging with the group itself as the sale as a deal progresses, you'll be then you'll then have more access to more people within the buying group potentially. And maybe some will be more vocal at certain points, and you'll have more interaction with them at certain points of the selling process. And in certain parts, certain other characters will leave and other ones will enter.

Alastair Cole 2:43

Yeah. And we know that the size of the buying groups, you know, has been going up for a little while. The COVID. And the pandemic exacerbated it. We saw buyers online at home, doing much more research taking more responsibility for being informed and wanting less time with sales reps, effectively much more self service going on. And that's just that's just exploded after the pandemic. I think HBr did some research recently. And they said that two years ago, I think 5.4 was the average number of people in an enterprise deal. And then it's up to 6.8. Now, buying groups are getting larger, and with ever more complex internal mechanics. And so when we're talking about complex buying groups, my friend, what area within the sales process are we talking about?

Kiran Gill 3:43

Well, so as you come into the early interactions with a client, so you know, you've you've made, you've touched base, everything looks perfect. At this point, when you start firstly, in your first interactions and your discovery kind of opportunity, when you're discovering the opportunity yourself. Some of your questions are going to be related to who are the stakeholders involved in this purchase decision? Now, you don't ask that question out front, what you're going to do, there is pretty much a stakeholder analysis and you start suddenly understanding who the characters are that are going to be involved in the purchasing of that solution, that service that you're selling now, because the chances are you've been doing this for multiple years or you've come from that industry, you probably have an understanding of who is going to make up that buying group prior prior to you even getting engaged if you're brand new to sales. Hopefully you're with a company that's already done all the analysis, has a playbook and has already told you our solution that was aimed at these people. These are the people that are going to be in the buying group. And you're going to start engaging these kinds of, you know roles and different types of characters within the process.

Alastair Cole 4:56

Great, well let's let's crack on and get into those characters. Want to start by just demonstrating our results that we see through properly assessing buying groups, we're able for our clients to book more than twice as many meetings, quadruple their win rates, and deliver a tune of 51%. Our why. And through our 360 sales diagnostic product that we've put 53 startups through in the last eight months, we see in the deal closing phase, which is, which is where the buying group exists, the average score for the deal closing element of their sales capability is 45.7%. And that covers that full list on the right hand side, everything through their pre-sales and demo capability to target reporting and monitoring. So deal closing kind of scoring mid 40s, not terrible, but obviously not not great, and a big area where understanding the buying group can help improve that. How are you selling today, you know, right at the top here, maybe you're not maybe just got your fingers crossed, hoping the phone rings, you might be doing ad hoc sales. So whatever worked last time, if you're engaging with a buying group, you're more likely to be in a consultative selling space, you know, acting more like advisors. And further down the line. If you want to get more dynamic. You want to get into self service, a digital buyer and Agent enablement tool that is actually the subject of our next masterclass. But today, we're focusing on the consultative aspect of selling a range of different consultative selling approaches that we take. And what we're going to do now is dive into the seven buying group personas that we feel are important within a complex buying group. So we're going to dive into those seven now for power through each one. With Kiran here as our expert, b2b guide, let's come straight off the bat, my friend persona number one, the champion, why is the champion important?

Kiran Gill 6:57

Yeah, so when it comes to the champion, you need somebody, when you're selling something that is complex, that potentially if you're selling or doing something consultative selling means that you're, you're selling something that people need to be convinced to purchase in some such way. That's why you're in a consultative selling process. Having a champion in the deal gives you an advantage over everybody else that potentially is selling into that company, who might be also selling similar solutions as yourself. Now, the great thing about having a champion is that that the champion there is, is there to basically promote you internally when you're not actually in the room. And that's a great thing that champions your solution, your service to the rest of the buying process or buying committee. And that's why it's so important to have one.

Alastair Cole 7:49

And what would be your top tip? We've listed five things out here about how to spot a champion, how to identify the behaviours and which one is most important for you.

Kiran Gill 8:01

That thing with the champion is you have to make sure if you have got a champion in place, you need to make sure that you give them the right information and the right, you know, the right assets to promote you the way they need to promote you internally. So that is very, very important. Because if they don't have that information, they're unable to go and try to convince other people with the story you're trying to tell. Remember, they're championing your cause when you're not there. It's great when you're there, it's easy. However, when you're not there, these people are doing your selling on your behalf.

Alastair Cole 8:38

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I love spotting them through making a connection early on, right? And that might be that they were the person who reached out to you through the inbound lead, or somebody made a connection early on on a sales call. And there's that kind of personal connection, there's an opportunity for them to turn into the champion. And then any watch out for you about concerns you might be worried about identifying someone as a champion. Yeah,

Kiran Gill 9:11

I think sometimes you can get a little bit carried away. You want to see champions and people potentially that aren't. They might just talk to you because they're friendly, or they see an opportunity to maybe make themselves look bigger in the company. However, they're not really, you know, as we would say, in English. They're tire kickers, you know that they're not learned to really purchase anything. What they're really doing is they're using your material to make themselves look good inside the whole buying within the buying committee. And that can be a waste of time sometimes. I've been in processes I've I've been there where I've seen this happen to me where I thought the person I was speaking to was going to champion the cause. And you just realise that the deal is going nowhere. They're actually not championing the cause. They're using your material to actually make themselves look good within the buying committee, and maybe championing somebody else's cause and using your material to actually use against you. So you've got to beware of the champion, you know. And like Alastair, you said there, I think looking for somebody you've worked with in the past, who'd might have potentially gone into a new company, is a great way of trying to find a new champion, they've worked with you, you've got a relationship with them, maybe they're looking to now move into another new position. And this is a great way for you to rekindle that relationship where you had in the past company and then say, hey, let's try to do something here. Let's try to get you to where you want to be.

Alastair Cole 10:43

Okay, let's move on to the second one. Persona number two, the influencer? Why, why is an influencer so important.

Kiran Gill 10:54

So when we're looking at an influencer, you've got to remember these people might not be actually a part of the buying group all the way through, however, what they're going to be doing, they're influencing the buying group from outside. So what they'll do a lot of the time, they're helping the group itself to gather opinion together. So the great thing about an influencer is that they're speaking to different people within the group at the same time. So bringing one of these people into your buying day into your kind of selling approach is absolutely critical. If you can get the influencer on side who is able to influence others because of their relationships within the group can save you so much time in the buying process.

Alastair Cole 11:42

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I love watching out for them or sporting them as someone who is a trusted adviser, maybe by a decision maker. But obviously they you know, they have authority, they have influence in the group. And what would be a sales action, you'd pick out a career and about another one about how you would cater to influences?

Kiran Gill 12:09

Yeah, just just make sure that when you're talking about your solution, that they have a good understanding of what your solution is, the chances are, if they're influencing, they will want to make sure that they keep their power within the group. So you need to make sure that you've got these people on site, that they have the necessary information, and all that they require to make sure that they are able to share that within the group. And they're comfortable sharing that. So get regular feedback from influences, find out where you are, don't be embarrassed to reach out to them and knock on their door and say, Hey, where are we in the process? Can I give you anything else? Do you need anything else that sometimes very good at giving you information back as well, in the sense of telling you, you know, what you might be missing the missing the mark with the deal here, might need to sharpen your pencil a little bit better, or, you know, there's loads of so an influencer is very, very important, because they're critical to the deal. And they will always have influences in the deal.

Alastair Cole 13:12

Okay, let's, let's move on to number three, the end user, the individual who's actually going to be using the solution on a day to day basis why? Why is this persona so important?

Kiran Gill 13:27

Well, if you're selling your solution, the chances are the end user is the one who's going to be using it. They're the one who is probably going to be using your solution on a day to day basis. And potentially, it could be one of the people from that group that might be reaching out to you whom we're being told, Go and assess some products and find out how we could do this better. So initially, you might get somebody contacting your company from an inbound need, that might be an entry level person who is a end user, you might not spot them as an end user, they might not call themselves an end user, because who calls themselves an end user, you call yourself a decision maker, don't you? I would, or you, I'm the decision maker. However, the chances are, these people are going to be using it. And you want to make them feel comfortable with your solution. You want to find out exactly how they work, what they're looking to do with it. And the great thing about an end user is that they probably give you a lot of information about the internal stakeholders within that buying group. However, remember, no one really is going to tell you that they're not a decision maker. So this takes a bit of time and effort.

Alastair Cole 14:35

Yeah, everybody thinks they're a decision maker. So I think that's a great shout from you. Often, they're the ones who are researching at the beginning of the process, you know, we need something different with this. What we've got currently isn't working for us. So I think that's a great shout. And, you know, being really working hard to try and turn them into advocates, right, because they're the ones who you Like you said, and kind of internal sales will be supporting that decision making process. So it is really important to keep end users in mind. And I think one of the key sales actions for me is around showing that practical value they want to, they need to see it to believe it. And so it's demonstrating practical value through interactive demos, and proofs of concept. So they can actually see what they're going to get to get not so much theoretical, much more practical for them,

Kiran Gill 15:31

that they're great to shape your demo. So the great thing about an end user is that they'll tell you exactly what the company is trying to achieve, what they want to see and how they want to use it. So when you get to that, potentially, you're, you have to demo your product. So if you can get the end user to give you the story, and give you the actual script, to the actual, to the presentation, that's powerful, because you're gonna see these people in that presentation in that demo nodding their head saying, that's exactly what we want. And you don't need to talk about price to these people, because they don't actually care about price. Because they haven't been given this, they haven't been told to find the cheapest product that they've been told, find the product that works for us.

Alastair Cole 16:15

And I think that's a really good point about them, actually, kind of becoming mini champions, they don't necessarily have the authority to, you know, drive it all the way to the finish, but they become like many champions, and over they see those features I've seen people's eyes light up, when you show them various features, I think like that's gonna save me two hours a day. Immediately. They're a kind of mini champion fighting your calls. So end users are really important. Let's dive on to number four. bit more of a negative persona here the blocker, what's what's what's the block all about Kiran.

Kiran Gill 16:52

The blocker tends to be somebody who is, you know, just happy with the status quo potentially, is unfavourable to your solution, doesn't want to move things forward and can be kind of sceptical about what your solution can potentially do for the company. And you always get these people. And you know, I have several in my family. Hopefully, they're not watching. But from that kind of thing. This is what happens, you know, and you'll, you'll be nice to think that once you engage with a client that everyone's on board, you're the best solution, you're the best service ever a let's make this happen. Unfortunately, sometimes there are going to be people in there who might be banging a drum for a competitor. So for somebody else, they could be a champion, they could be an influencer. However, for you on your side of the deal, they're a blocker. Because tell you the truth, they don't like your solution. They don't like you. It could be the wrong guy or the week, it could be for any reason. However, you've got to be prepared for these people.

Alastair Cole 17:55

Yeah. And I love that. How to spot where we say if they're, if they're talking favourably about the competition, right, then that's a good indicator that they're, that there could be a blocker, and they're bringing up budget constraints challenging on value. And generally, you know, their potential deal breakers, which is a, you know, big issue. So what would be your number one tip, in terms of sales action that sellers should take to neutralise blockers?

Kiran Gill 18:28

I think I love that first one we got there under sales actions to get to the heart of the objection itself. Because once you start digging up that and I've seen this happen so many times in sales presentations, the blocker potentially within the sales presentation will be the one that is right or in the demo will raise their hand and say, excuse me, I'd like to ask a question. And it's a horrible question. Now, however, what you want to do at that point is find out exactly what their problem is. Why is it that that's what they're looking for, because what you'll tend to find is, suddenly, the objection just fades away. Because it didn't exist in the first place. Because actually, the real thing is that they want the deal to go somewhere else. Or they are worth the money to spend some money somewhere else. So the great thing about the object with the blocker is don't be afraid of them. Make sure that you have your understanding of why your solutions better be prepared for them, get your colleagues to test you to make sure that you're prepared because these people will come along and they will make your life difficult somewhere along the line.

Alastair Cole 19:35

And I think that's a good shot but getting your colleagues to test you know role playing around difficult questions you might get before a meeting is really, really really highly valuable. I love this last sales action about sharing customer stories where a similarly sceptical client right changed their mind and the outcome was successful. You know, you can say, you know, two deals ago somebody had the same concerns as you and this is how we got past that. When alleviating them, and something else, that's all that's often worked for me is where I've taken that negative individual who is someone who has negative thought patterns around the solution, and given them a more of a pivotal role in the decision making process. So they would be leading on, you know, testing or something where actually, they have to sit in front of the product. And actually, when they see it, and they use it through their own eyes, they become more on board. So bringing them out of that group, and exposing those false objections is a good way to do it, too. Let's move on to number five of seven. The evaluator is often technically focused, and definitely a gatekeeper about whether your solution is going to fit in. How do you how do you see the role of the evaluator Kiran

Kiran Gill 21:00

can be very similar to the user, I won't lie to you guys, you probably know the evaluator, they might be slightly higher in the food chain within the company from the end user. However, the evaluator's job is potentially evaluating multiple products that are similar competitors together. So you know, their job is to ask lots of questions. Be prepared for these people, they'll want to have a lot of their homework, remember that they want to make sure that they look good within the buying committee, because their job is there to evaluate and make sure that the buying committee has all the information they require to make the decision.

Alastair Cole 21:35

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Often when I'm thinking about the evaluator, I'm thinking from a SAS point of view about the Chief Technology Officer, right? This is somebody who is checking that it's going to fit in with the overall strategic vision, the tech stack, the the way the company organised itself, is that solution actually going to go to work? Can it be, can it be woven in? And how is it going to be rolled out across that, across that organisation for individuals, and I think for them, you know, connecting them with subject matter experts, connecting in with sales engineers, providing, you know, deep, comprehensive information is a way to help get them on board. Definitely, number six, is the executive sponsor, very senior company official financial authority. I see this more as a kind of your CFO role. were telling me about the influence in the deal killer, and how important is are they in terms of the influence, depending

Kiran Gill 22:46

the likelihood of you closing a deal without the executive sponsor, especially in larger deals is probably a non, it's not going to happen. So to have an executive sponsor, who potentially could even be a champion, that could be the best kind of executive sponsor, yeah, it would be the ultimate in all selling processes is so the chances are, the executive sponsor will turn up towards the end, because they won't want to really understand too much about the solution, they probably don't care where it goes. However, what they do care about is the return on investment, and how they can sell it upwards to the C suite to say, I made a great decision here, look how much money we're making, this is the best thing ever, it was because of me, this happened. So these people need to be you. Therefore, remember, you're giving information to other people within the buying group to pass on to this person, because this person then will take that information, say, Oh, this is going to make me look amazing. And get me that boat in that bonus that I've always wanted.

Alastair Cole 23:52

Yeah, very much focused on the money. And I think that's a way to spot, you know, exec sponsors, they're talking about return on investment, they're talking about company goals. And then in terms of how to deal with them, you've got to demonstrate strategic value and kind of long term success because these people are looking way beyond just the next four quarters. So that's the exact sponsor, and then the seventh and final persona we're going to cover off is the decision maker. Sounds really important. What Why is that the case, Karen,

Kiran Gill 24:29

we're talking about complex buying groups. So the decision maker actually might be the decision maker. So you know, there might be multiple people because we're buying by consensus. Now, more and more, no one person wants to take the decision for a product that comes into the company that could potentially be make or break. It might not be, but still it's a reputational risk, isn't it? So why should I take the risk on my own? Let's get everybody on board. Let's all have a sign off for this. And this is the difficulty about selling into complex buying groups. Because if some people are going to be sitting on the fence or not coming on board, the chances are the deal just doesn't happen. Because you know what, it's probably easier just not to do it. So decision makers are really important. And trying to turn the people, all of the people within the buying group into decision makers and treating them thus, gives them the feeling and also the power to think you know, what this is, this is good, because I'm getting what I want from this deal. And let's make this happen.

Alastair Cole 25:33

Yeah, so, you know, spotting them, they might be talking about the internal decision making process, or certainly referred to by others in the group because of their role. And they're crystal clear about project objectives. And I might my key sales action take out is, is this last one about offering them meetings with with other senior executives, often they're difficult to get to early on in the processes decision maker? And so how can you how can you try and engage them, you might need to offer somebody not only to offer your boss or your your your boss's boss, what, you know, lastly on on, on that decision making Kevin what would be what would be your your number one sales action that you would recommend?

Kiran Gill 26:19

Okay, so basically trying to make sure that you're qualifying, qualifying, making sure that the decision maker is comfortable with everything that's happening, they need to be able to see the value, again, very similar to the executive sponsor, they are going to be that kind of purpose within the whole buying group is the one who's going to be taking the decision. So they need to be very, very comfortable, and they won't take that decision, if they're not comfortable. Now, a great way of saying and asking to pick up on this before, is another great way of getting them on board is by showing them other companies that are similar to them. And people like themselves, who are decision makers who have made the same decision, because that gives them the feeling that hold on, if x y x, y Zed are doing this, we should be doing this. And that person's the same level as me, I'm now comfortable. So having that kind of support material, that is customer testimonials that really resonate with these people is valuable as anything. Yeah.

Alastair Cole 27:19

And that's a great way to wrap it up. Because we opened the show by talking about how it's all about people, people have their own motivations and actually showing people like me, who used your solution and was successful is their natural, you know, herd mentality for humans. So decision makers want to get everybody on board in the room. That's how you get decision makers by getting everybody else on board. And then and then comparing what they might do to their competitors in the marketplace and why your solution is going to work for them. So, back to the human aspect, which I love very much and is absolutely critical, you know, for selling and obviously dealing with complex buying groups. So those are the seven the champion influencer end user blocker evaluator exec sponsor, and finishing with the decision maker, I talked at the top of the show about the 45.7 average score that we've seen across the 50 Plus startups who've been through our 360 sales diagnostic. And that is our key product of ours that we use with clients at the beginning of our relationship that delivers a full score and breakdown bespoke recommendations and revenue roadmap, you can get more on our website theupliftpartnership.com/360. Work out how you can get started today on generating your score. How good is your sales function across sales strategy, team structure tech stack, lead gen deal closing that we've covered off now customer success and continuous improvement. So if you're interested in generating a 360, inner revenue roadmap for the next 12 months for your company, then head over to theupliftpartnership.com/360. And the last thing for me to do excitedly is to talk about the show in two weeks in a day's time, which is adding self service for b2b buyers. When do you do it? When do you start adding self service for your buyers? And how do you do that, as you're moving more into the Self Service realm. So that's back to our regular day of Tuesday, Tuesday, the seventh of May. It'll be Karen, it'll be me. It'll be a lot of fun. We'll be diving into self service for b2b buying any final takeaway, my friend on handling complex buying groups or something that we haven't covered that you'd like to share? Or maybe we've nailed it all?

Kiran Gill 29:55

I think we've nailed it. The majority of it. The one thing I would say for those of you listening: You're watching or wherever you are. If you have listened to all of this, go back to the deals that you're working on at the moment. And try to make a try to place who you're speaking to, and try to figure out where they are, who are these people? And then start thinking to yourself, how can you do it? If you do want a copy of the work that we put here together, happy to share that please reach out to us or reach out to Alastair because he did this event's work in the background. And we'll be happy to listen to any questions or anything you have out there. Or even you know, if you've got a different way of looking at this, it's always good.

Alastair Cole 30:33

I think that's great advice. You can't be a blank sheet of paper and pencil, you scribble down the key names in the complex buying group that you're interacting with. What are they? Are they a champion? Are they a blocker? Like you said these slides are our definitions will be available online. And if you need any help with that can reach out to me or Karen on LinkedIn on Twitter. Or you can head over to the website www.thepartnership.com. We're always available to help accelerate sales for startups. That's it. Now the time shows finish. Thank you for your time, my friend. b2b sales expertise as usual. Appreciate it very much.

Kiran Gill 31:12

No worries. Thanks, Alastair.

Alastair Cole 31:14

Thanks, everybody. Bye.

Kiran Gill 31:16

See you soon. Bye.

Alastair Cole 31:18

Bye bye for now.