Lesson 4 - Map Out Your Buying Committee

Get the companion study guide for all episodes — packed with practical assignments, templates, and key takeaways at thedailyquota.com

Sales success often requires winning over multiple stakeholders. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to map out a buying committee, identify the key players, and understand their unique roles in the decision-making process. Your assignment will involve analyzing one of your target accounts to create a buying committee map, including notes on each stakeholder's potential influence and interests.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome back to the Daily Quota. I'm your host, Nicholas Hill. And in today's lesson, you're going to map out your buying committee. Now, let's talk about what a buying committee actually is. Um, when people think about, Oh, I'm selling to this company. I'm selling to this organization. I'm selling to this team. What they actually mean is, I'm selling to a group of people. Right at the end of the day, you're always selling to people. This is a people centered job. And when you think about your buying committee, you're thinking about who are the group? What is the group of people that I need to convince? To buy my product. If I can convince this group one by one by one, that buying my solution is the right idea, then ultimately I will get to the sale. So the buying committee is a really, really important concept, and I'm going to use it a lot in this course, because you are going to tailor your value message, depending on which member of the buying committee you're talking to. And to really understand that, let's, let's talk about who actually makes up the buying committee. Normally it's about, uh, well, I don't want to say normally, it depends on your solution. A buying committee could be 3 people, it could be 10 people, it could be 50 people in a steering committee. Um, there could be an RFP, there could not. But ultimately, you need to, uh, these buying committees typically have a few main, uh, people in them. One is going to be your end user, your end users. The people who are actually going to end up using your solution need to be convinced that they should be using your product, right? They're the ones that are going to directly use your product, your champions, your champions are going to be the people with a little bit more influence than your end users. Typically. Um, they're going to be the advocate for your product within the organization. They're going to sell for you when you're not there. Um, they're the ones with the authority to get the job done. We'll talk all about champions later. The economic buyer is the person that's actually going to approve the budget for your product. Um, they're the ones they have. They're the decision maker with financial authority is the best way to think about the economic buyer. Um, the executive sponsor, that's the senior leader who's supportive of the initiative. Typically, they're in charge of the key performance indicators for the business that your solution is going to support. Um, then you have your gatekeepers, right? You always want to think about the people in your buying committee that are going to be more challenging. Your gatekeepers are typically, uh, normally this is like IT or procurement. Thank you very much. Um, they're the ones that can block or delay the project. It's just as important, maybe even more important to know about their needs. Um, your detractors, the people that are opposing your product due to various reasons, this could be like resistance to change or loyalty to a competing product, um, something to that effect. You have it, your procurement team, as I mentioned earlier, they're usually detractors or gatekeepers. You have legal, right? Your legal team is going to be involved, um, in order to make sure that the legal documentation, that the paperwork is all correct. These are just some typical roles, right? Uh, that are going to be found on your buying committee, and it's important for you to take a look at your solution and start to map out, based on previous deals, based on what I've learned so far, um, who are the typical members of my buying committee, and, and which roles, uh, do they play, what titles do they typically have. Each member of that committee will influence the purchasing decision in significant ways. So you need to understand their unique concerns and their unique value. Um, I would leverage the persona cards here. In the last lesson, or in one of the previous lessons, we went through persona cards. Um, I would start to map out and draft persona cards for each of the top members of the buying committee. I think in your previous lesson you did this for your power users. Um, but for now, I would do this for, I would start to do it for every member of your buying committee. Don't worry, that's not your homework. That's going to take some time to do. Um, but I would start to do this, uh, for every member. What you do need to start thinking about though, is for each member of my buying committee at a high level, what is the unique value proposition that they care about? And for that, I actually want to give you an example. Let's pretend that we work for Sprout Social. Um, you're going to hear me use Sprout Social as an example. A lot in this course, I do not work for Sprout Social. I'm not affiliated with Sprout Social. I have never worked for them in the past. Um, but I just think that's a really easy, useful example. It's a very, uh, popular social media management company. And I think everybody can kind of wrap their head around social media management and how simple, uh, of a concept that is for, for workflows. So we're going to use Sprout social a lot. Um, let's consider their buying committee for their end users. They are probably going to be social media managers. Um, these are people that are going to use Sprout social to schedule posts, to manage content, to analyze engagement across multiple social media platforms. And when you're talking to them, you are probably going to highlight the platform's user friendly interface. You'll probably highlight, uh, scheduling tools, how they can save time, how their advanced analytics can help them understand audience behaviors, how they can improve their engagement strategies. Um, you want to talk to them about them, their jobs. How are you going to make their jobs easier, right? So, those are your end users, your social media managers. Your champions for Sprout Social, and again, I don't work for them, so I could be wrong here, but I would imagine are going to be your digital marketing managers, right? Um, they're going to see the overarching value of comprehensive analytics. They're going to look for tools that streamline operations across the team that enhance the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. Um, they are tied to typically slightly loftier goals, right? So you, when you're presenting to them, you need to tailor your value proposition. You'll probably talk about sprout socials, robust analytics, reporting capabilities, insights into campaign performance. Um, how can they make informed decisions as a team? So that's your champion for your economic buyer for sprout. It's probably your CFO, or it could be a senior manager in finance or a director of finance. Right. Um, and these decision makers are probably going to control the purse strings, focus on the financial implications of the software. Uh, they're going to evaluate the cost against potential returns. When you're talking to an economic buyer, you need to be thinking about return on investment. You need to be thinking about dollars and cents. So how can you increase efficiency, reduce cost, improve revenue, mitigate risks for them? Um, create more effective social media strategies in the case of Sprout. Um, but ultimately when you're thinking about economic buyers, you need to think about finance ROI. Um, then you have your executive sponsor, which for Sprout socials, probably your CMO, your chief marketing officer. Um, and as a senior leader, they ensure that any new tool or software aligns with the strategic goals of the marketing or social media departments. And ultimately the organization at large. So, um, you, when you think about a value proposition for an executive sponsor, you need to be linking your solutions capabilities with the overarching, broader organizational goals. What are the main KPIs of the organization? And how can you link your solution to those KPIs, um, those overarching initiatives. And, um, when you think about gatekeepers, really for a lot of different solutions, it might be your IT director. This is someone that might be more concerned with how the software integrates into their existing systems. They're thinking about cost. They're thinking about change management. They're going to be looking with a cynical eye at things like data security. Um, uh, impact on the IT infrastructure. How much administrative control do they have over your product? So you need to be thinking about, okay, what is our commitment to security, to integration, to compliance? How do we play well with your existing tech stack? Um, do we integrate with your CRM, your business systems? How are we going to ensure minimal disruption? You need to be talking to them about, uh, change management and the ease of use. Um, really you want to let them know just like with all of the people you're talking to how you're going to make their jobs as easy as possible. Um, an attractor for Sprout Social might be a traditional marketing manager. So you might be, uh, someone who prefers the old ways, right? Someone who's like, well, we, we have conventional methods of doing that. And those are good enough. Um, they might be skeptical of change, of new digital tools, people that are slow to react, slow to adopt, um, especially in the area of SaaS technology. Um, they can view these things as unnecessary, as point solutions, as disruptive. So you want to be able to come in with a, um, with an eye to their concerns, with a, an empathetic eye to their concerns. When you're talking to them, you need to really be listening first. You need to be asking them, what are the things that you're worried about? What are the things that. You don't think you'll be able to do on this tool. What are the things that you do effectively on your current tool that you're afraid of losing? Um, are you concerned about change management about learning a new tool? Right? These are individuals where you can help to assuage their concerns by just listening and really understanding what, um, what the matter is. And sometimes literally just providing that empathy can be enough. To get somebody on your side. Um, so, that's an example using Sprout Social. Um, always, always, always understand who your buying committee is. Who plays, uh, who are, who's typically playing the different roles. Um, recognize that each member has a distinct impact on the purchasing decision. Um, your ability to engage with these individuals, to understand their needs, to communicate effectively, that's going to make or break this deal for you. Um, I think that's everything. All right, it's your turn. For your assignment, I want you to map out your buying committee. You're going to map it out using your own solution, using your own, um, typical titles, champions, users, detractors, economic buyers, executive sponsors, gatekeepers. Um, you're going to be thinking about this again, ask your manager, ask your mentor, ask your marketing team, if they know, um, but if they don't look at your own experience, look at previous deals and, um, and start to map this out and it might take some time, but I want you to get the process started and really start to understand who you're buying committee is. If you really want to get extra with it, um, you can start to build out full persona cards for each of these individuals so that you can understand what they care about. Um, and ultimately how you're going to tailor your pitch effectively to convince each member. And, uh, that's it for today's lesson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you next time.