The last few years have seen a revolution in purchasing practices, largely the result of a massive increase in the knowledge of the buyer. No longer do they need to wait patiently for sales people to call, and when they do, it’s a fair bet that the buyers know more about the selling company and what it sells than the average salesman knows about potential customer and what it buys. This has changed the balance of power.

Suppliers are now ‘positioned’ by purchasing professionals (no longer are they mere buyers, any more than Account Managers are mere sales representatives!) in pursuit of more effective ways to manage those suppliers. The buyer is in search of their Key Suppliers and with as much energy as those suppliers are in pursuit of their Key Accounts.

One thing is for sure; for a sales person it’s not enough to label the customers, sales people now also have to know how buyers label them, for being something other than a Key Supplier could be damaging to your ambitions, perhaps even damaging to your health. The problem is; sales people understand little to none on how purchasing professionals analyse markets and suppliers and how they do their supplier portfolio management.

Next to a well know Porter 5-forces analysis, a Pareto (or ABC classification analysis), one of the key tools buyers use to determine their buying strategy is the so called Kraljic Matrix (or one of the many spin-off variants). It looks at supply risk and impact on the buyers bottom-line and by looking at that determines what the best sourcing strategy would be.

Key Suppliers can exist in any quadrant, though to be regarded as such that supplier must abide by the ‘rules of the box’. Behave as you are expected to behave, and the buyer will smile on you – that’s the simple theory. In practice, suppliers commit a variety of sins, from ignorance of their positioning - leading to obvious problems with living up to expectations - through to assuming greater status and significance than they warrant – possibly leading to a great deal of wasted effort and frustration on both sides. Aiming to raise your status is no bad ambition, in the long run, but if you get too far ahead of yourself you risk becoming a nuisance to the buyer; one of those suppliers that always acts above their station – some call it being arrogant.

To be successful as a salesperson understanding where you are in the eyes of the customer is crucial.

As you move northwards in the matrix, expect the buyer to take a greater interest in the mechanisms and processes of your company. Many salespeople regard this line of questioning as a nuisance – don’t! Recognise it for what it is – the buyer’s need to be confident in a supplier that is of increasing importance. Meeting their needs in this respect - providing information on your capabilities, developing services that enhance your product quality - these things will repay you handsomely when it comes to the price discussion.

Sales professionals have long been trained to observe behaviours indicating the personal motivations of their opposite numbers. Good stuff, but not enough on its own - the game has moved up a level. The key now is observing those behaviours that indicate the long-term business motivations of the buyer.

Just as there are personality profiles, so there are profiles for typical buyer types based on the challenge of their business and the nature of their business ambitions. Knowledge of these profiles will help the seller to a crucial understanding: it’s not what the buyer thinks of your price that matters, but what buyer think of the sales ability to help them and their business prosper. If sales people have something to say about that, then it will be relatively easy to present the true nature of your value. If not, then the sales value proposition is all too likely to be ‘off beam’, so justifying the buyer in their stereotypical prejudice against all suppliers’ ‘ so-called value propositions….’

The book Understanding the Professional Buyer – what every sales professional should know about how the modern buyer thinks and behaves is written for sales professionals who want to understand how buyers think and behave and therefore become more effective in building sustainable and value driven relations. The book is written by two authors, Jan Paul van der Velde, career buyer and Peter Cheverton a well known expert in Key Account management, owner of Insight Marketing and People and a writer of over 15 books on the subject of Key Account Management and sales excellence.

More can be found about the purchasing revolution, and what it means for sales professionals, by reading:

Understanding the Professional Buyer, what every sales professional should know about how the modern buyer thinks and behaves

Written by:

Peter Cheverton and Jan Paul van der Velde
Published by Kogan Page, www.koganpage.com

ISBN 9780749461232

Available to purchase at Amazon by clicking here