Donna
Siegel

Selling To The True Decision Makers

Some sales reps start each cold call by asking "who buys" the type of product they offer. That's the person who is going to make the buying decision, right? Perhaps, but they might be more successful is they first make sure they are Selling To The True Decision Makers.

Background

I'm the sales manager of a small company with an innovative service. We sell energy management systems for all types of large buildings, such as office towers, hospitals, hotels, shopping malls and warehouses. Energy management enables the people who run these buildings to accomplish two goals: they can reduce their consumption of energy, thereby saving money; and they can make the environment a better place for the people who are in the building, increasing comfort and productivity. Energy management is an interesting business that takes a combination of engineering (to make sure that every energy system in the building is running efficiently) and technology (to set up sensors which can detect potential and real problems well before they happen).

As beneficial as energy management can be, it often represents a very difficult sale. While saving energy is a worthwhile goal for most business people, it may not be front and center for most of them. Few business executives understand what energy management is, and the potential benefits are often difficult to quantify. Thus, a great deal of time has to be spent educating people on why they need energy management before we can even begin to sell our services.

Our Initial Marketing Approach

We know that owners of large buildings and groups of buildings employ engineers, operations people and other facilities professionals to supervise and maintain each building's mechanical systems. Such people are typically trained to perform routine maintenance and cleaning, but do not have the skills needed to address specialized energy problems or changes in the usage of the building.

Because people in these positions have an interest in energy-related matters, we believed they would want to know more about what could be done to enhance their buildings' systems. And once they understood some of the newer, energy-enhancing technologies, they might bring us in to help them improve their systems.

The best way to accomplish this, we decided, was through a series of energy management seminars. We built a list of all the suitable buildings in the local area, and we sent out invitations to the facilities engineers. We remembered to get some interesting speakers and to include lunch. Our seminars appeared to be a big success. The people we invited were attending in large numbers, the conversations at lunch were spirited and engaging, and most of those who attended were quite enthusiastic about the ideas we presented.

Near the end of the seminar, we made follow-up appointments with as many people as possible. With others, we made phone calls afterwards to try for on-site appointments. But after a few of these seminars, we realized the sales were just not happening. We had plenty of sales calls with interested facilities engineers, and delivered many proposals, but we just couldn't close them.

What Went Wrong?

After every proposal that resulted in no sale, we did our best to find out why. You never get a clear response from some prospects, but others were quite candid about why our proposed solutions were not purchased.

The most common answer was that the facilities management department was all for our proposal, but top management had rejected it. The dollars were not in the budget, they thought it cost too much, or they didn't see the benefits. The lesson to us from this response was that most maintenance and facilities managers do not have the authority to make purchases costing tens of thousands of dollars. And they are not capable of explaining the benefits of energy management to the real decision makers.

The second type of answer was that we had done too good a job in our seminars and proposals. We had taught the engineers what to look for and had basically given them a road map to fix their systems themselves, leading to: "We didn't buy because we decided to do it in-house." Of course! We should have realized it. The more ambitious facilities engineers had little or no intention of buying from us. They were picking our brains to make themselves look good.

Now, we understood why there had been so much smoke, but no fire. We were trying to sell to the people who would be most interested in energy management, but they were not the people with the greatest ability or motivation to buy from us. The problem was not necessarily with our seminar approach. It was that we were selling to the wrong level.

We needed to sell directly to the corporate executives, building owners, boards of directors, property managers, vice presidents of building administration and others who could make a major purchase decision.

Our New Selling Approach

A few months ago, we corrected our lead generation. We started targeting executives rather than facilities people. Using direct mail, targeted advertising and even some short seminars (short, because executives have less time than technical staff), we started talking about business issues rather than technical ones. We focused on such matters as employee productivity, life-cycle cost of equipment, monthly savings in electrical cost, government and power company incentives and OSHA regulations on air quality.

These business issues went directly to the areas of greatest interest to executives. Faced by continually rising costs, they learned that energy management was an intelligent way to wring thousands of dollars a month from their overhead. Sure, our services and equipment might cost as much as $100,000 or more, but the return on investment could be a matter of months.

The change in our sales approach took place only about 4 months ago, which is too early for conclusive results. I can tell you, though, what has happened already. We have tripled the number of active prospects who are seriously considering buying energy management. Two contracts have already closed.

As for facilities engineers, they are still involved in most of our deals, but with two differences. One, since we are selling the economic benefits directly to top management, we're not relying on the engineers to tell our story for us. Second, if the engineers try to make a case for doing the work in-house, we can quickly demonstrate to top management that we have the tools, specialized know-how and proven track record that even their best people cannot match.

And to think how much time and energy we were wasting selling to the wrong level.

Summary

In almost every sale to a business or industrial account, the person who makes the financial decision is different from the person who is involved with the detailed evaluation of your product or service.

For any major purchase, the true decision maker must be convinced of the value of the purchase. Further, they must believe that this purchase is more urgent than all of the others which may be competing for the same dollars. We cannot rely on the ability of lower level people, however enthusiastic they may be, to carry our story convincingly to top management, much less to educate them on a totally new idea.

Top managers usually reached that level by focusing on the greatest needs of their company. People below that level may have other motivations which prevent our success - everything from fear of change or preference for a particular vendor to wanting to build a bigger empire by taking on more control. We cannot count on them to fairly evaluate what we sell unless top management is watching. 

SeaBird Associates Inc
3011 NE 7th Drive
Boca Raton, FL 33431
Phone: 561-750-9233
E-mail: Donna Siegel

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