What Does The Buyer Want, Anyway? Part I
Robert Menard, Certified Purchasing Professional, Certified Professional Purchasing Consultant
Editor’s Note: This is Part I of a three part installment on how sellers can better identify and serve the buyer’s interests. In Part II, we’ll see how the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is used to sell ‘Best Value’.
The answer to “What Does the Buyer Want? is not short, simple or satisfying. Fortunately, as noted in every Sales Training 101, every problem is merely an opportunity.
How can Sales harvest this opportunity? Teach the buyers about Purchasing. Ironically, Sales is better equipped to do this by education and training than are their Purchasing counterparts. To reach them in a meaningful fashion requires a change in philosophy and appreciation for the buyer’s view of the business world.
The epic movie Patton provides a great lesson. Gen. Patton is shown reading the book on battlefield tactics written by his German adversary, General Erwin Rommel, in preparation for the African campaign. Upon vanquishing his foe, Patton exclaims in glee: “Rommel, you beautiful bastard, I read your book!” We want to know about the purchasing mind for more peaceful, yet similar purposes.
George C.Scott portraying Gen. Patton
USA Today reported that the 15.5 million sales people constitute 12% of the US workforce. By contrast, only about 500,000 people reported their professional as purchasing, a stunning 31 to 1 ratio!
Another interesting statistic is that sales pros receive an average of 38 hours of formal training per year, or 10 hours more than their senior executives, according to Training magazine. How much do buyers get? Among the thousands surveyed, the training and education for buyers for an entire career is 25 hours, or less than sales pro gets in an average year.
Given this information, a wiser approach may be to treat the buyer as an “under educated and trained victim” rather than a miserly brute. Since the mission is to win the purchasing war, better to bring our instruments of business into tune with the buyer’s sheet of music.
Consider the widely used expression “Best Value”. The definition of that term varies among buyers. Consequently, the Best Value negotiation easily collapses into a fool’s game of “lowest price”. This game requires two fools because both will lose. The seller gets burned on the low price and the buyer scraps Quality, Service and Delivery in favor of Price.