This included keeping senior executives away from vendors, and forbidding access to these executives until his chosen point in the cycle. He had strong views on capped licensing fees, milestone-based payments, and using strong positive and negative financial motivators to provide suppliers with adequate incentives to deliver on time and within budget.

If you examine his procedures, they are neither unfair nor unreasonable. All vendors get the same information, are provided with the same presentation opportunities, and all unsuccessful bidders are given a full and frank debrief immediately after the selection process. The thing to note about this process, however, is the level of built-in planning. Professional buyers know every step they want to take in the buying cycle. They have a detailed project plan, with hurdles and obstacles you have to scale, and unless you can visualize the journey they want to take, and have your own map to get there, you won’t be with them when they reach their destination.

A typical buying process in a large corporation is a (sometimes unnecessarily) complex thing (see Figure 1). Your job is to be part of the process as early as you can. Projects start because a Line of Business (LOB) Manager has identified a business need – a problem to be solved. If you helped him realize or articulate that need, you’re ahead of the game. You might lose this opportunity to internal competition, but if you have not been involved thus far, you won’t even know you have missed an opportunity and you certainly won’t have the chance to influence the outcome of any ‘build-vs-buy’ deliberations.

FIGURE 1: THE CORPORATE BUYING PROCESS

If the customer has decided to proceed, he will research the market to identify potential suppliers. Customers will ask market influencers and analysts to suggest potential suppliers. They will also conduct research via the Internet, and they will talk to their counterparts in other companies in their industry before they produce their Request for Information (RFI), or Request for Proposal (RFP).

You must assume that the customer has a professional buying plan. Buyers have access to all the information they need about you, your product and your competitors and will commoditize as many purchases as they can – forcing suppliers to compete on price and leaving little room for differentiation. In all of the analysis we have done of deals lost, one of the common factors for the loss has been a lack of understanding of the customer’s buying process. There is lots of evidence to suggest that, unless you understand the customer’s plans, its real business needs, and can develop its needs to show your distinct competitive advantage and real business value, success is unlikely. It’s much easier to design your selling plan, if you know the customer’s buying plan.