Sep 02 2008
Identifying the Decision Maker
The JF Guest Author Spot
Wendy Weiss
If you are not speaking with a decision-maker your sales cycle will lengthen and you may run the risk of losing the opportunity altogether. “Influencers” influence. They do not decide.
Bottom line: If you are not speaking with a decision-maker, you are not speaking with a qualified prospect. Far too many sales representatives spend far too much time courting prospects who can never and will never make a decision.
One way to ensure that you are always speaking with the decision-maker is to always call the highest-level person that you believe would make the decision. That person will either be your correct prospect, or they will know who is and they can point you in the right direction.
Once you’ve got that prospect on the phone, make sure to ask the following questions. This way you will be certain that you are speaking with the decision-maker.
1. What is your decision-making process?
2. How have you made this decision before?
3. What are the steps in your decision-making process?
4. How long does it take?
5. Who is involved in the decision-making process?
6. Who makes the final decision?
7. Who else will you be speaking with about this decision?
8. After we submit our proposal/bid/quote, what happens next?
9. How long will that take?
10. When do you expect to make a decision?
11. When would you like to begin?
Wendy Weiss, “The Queen of Cold Calling,” is a sales trainer, author and sales coach.
You can subscribe to her latest program Cold Calling College Live, which kicks-off on September 30th, by visiting www.wendyweiss.com. Contact her at wendy@wendyweiss.com. and read more about her here
Today’s News: Well, we have completed minor cosmetic makeovers to all our sites including: Top 10 Sales Articles, The JF Consultancy, Top Sales Experts and of course this blog. But by far the most exciting re-launch will be the Top Sales Experts initiative at the end of the month, when we add a whole host of new features and resources.
However, tomorrow I will be announcing a superb new addition to the resource area of The JF Consultancy.
This weekend, I completed the revision of a series of new E-books, and you can receive one FREE every single month just for subscribing to my complimentary JF Journal, which launches next week - please see the banner below.
Finally, a very good blog post for you: From Dave Brock “Why Manager’s Don’t Do People Management”
Tomorrow: Some updated thoughts about sales leadership and, as I mentioned earlier, news of a great new resource!
I agree with Wendy, that good time management for salespeople must include the aspect of talking to the right person at the right time about the right subject.
I believe however that for major sales, it is rare that one can speak to the decision maker immediately. Depending on the corporate culture, there might not even be A decision maker. It might be a committee. Admittedly even for committee decisions, there is probably someone with veto power. Then one needs to understand how the holder of this veto power is going to use it.
I think the key is therefore to have a clear objective for every conversation we have with someone in the customer/prospect organization.
Wendy clearly identifies the questions that should be asked to determine that we are talking to the decision maker.
My experience in the small end user market is that it is easy to get led around the garden path when attempting to make contact with potential customers.
Time to be more direct!
Great site.
Yes, yes, yes! Wendy you hit on probably the #1 biggest waster of sales people’s time. Its not that they don’t know to ask these questions, its that they don’t because they’re afraid of what they’ll hear… a bird in the hand and all…