CRM Insights Blog

The Most Important Sales Question

Author: Bob Hatcher;
CEO BetterSell Solutions

We all know the importance of asking questions when we are in a sales situation.  But, not all questions are created equally.  Some are much more important than others.  Over the course of my selling career and counseling numerous companies on how to ask questions, I’ve found that one question stands out among all the rest.  

One of the most important pieces of information we can get in a sales call is to pin down who will actually make the buying decision.  That’s the question we’ll discuss.  

Before I get to that, let’s define some terms related to “buying influences”.  Note that we use the words “buying influences” rather than “buyers” because there can be many people playing those roles (i.e. one person can be both a User Buying Influence and a Technical Buying Influence).  So, “playing those roles” is important to remember.  

According to Miller Heiman's Strategic Selling program, there are four types of buying influences:

1. The Economic Buying Influence – this is the person who can say “yes” and make it happen.  Most of the other buying influences can say yes, but they can’t make it happen.  Most of the time, this person controls the purse strings, but often not.  Finding the EB can be very difficult as sometimes, even they don’t know who will make the final decision.

2. The Technical Buying Influence – this is the person who will evaluate your offer from a technical perspective.  When we say technical, don’t think technology, think “technicality”.  Who will evaluate your offer from the aspect of technicalities?  It may be a technical guy, but it also may be someone from legal or finance.

3. The User Buying Influence – this is the person who will actually use your product or service.  For this person, the choice of a solution is very personal as you will be affecting this person’s work life (and often their after work life).

4. The Coach – we’ve all heard about the Coach, and I contend that your ability to develop coaches is directly related to your sales success.  The definition of a coach is quite simple:

   1. You have credibility with them

   2. They have credibility will the other buying influences (see above) for this purchase.

   3. They want you to win.  (This is the hardest to discern and crafting this is an art.)

So, now getting back to the most important question…  

The problem is that the Technical or User Buying Influence will pretend to be the Economic Buying Influence.  The scenario usually happens like this:  

BOSS: “Joe, you know the most about these issues go out and find us a company who can fix this for us.”

JOE: “Ok, boss”

Joe finds you on the Internet, looks at your website and calls you.  After a few minutes it goes something like this:  

YOU ASK JOE: “So, Joe, who’s going to make the final decision on this?”

JOE: “I am”  

So, you walk away thinking Joe is the Economic Buying Influence, when in fact, he’s just vetting possible vendors for the boss who will be making the final decision.  Joe probably thinks he is making the final decision, but, he’s not.  

How to get to the bottom of this?  Consider this scenario:  

YOU ASK JOE: “So Joe, who’s going to make the final decision on this?”

JOE: “I am.”

YOU ASK JOE: “Once you decide who you like best and want to go with them, what happens next”?

JOE: “I write up my recommendations and send them to my boss.”

YOU ASK JOE: “And, what happens when he agrees with you?”

JOE: “Well, I think he goes to his boss and asks for the money.”  (RED FLAG HERE – “I think”)

YOU ASK JOE: “Ok, once your boss’s boss approves, what happens?”

JOE: “You’ll get a purchase order”  

So, now you see how it works, Joe, the Technical Buying Influence actually thinks he can make the decision, but he can’t.  So, you’ve got to be smarter than him.  You’ve got to actually figure out who can make it happen.  

You see, the ability to make it happen is what distinguishes pretenders from the real decision-makers.  

If nothing else, remember that Economic Buying Influences can make it happen.  And the most important question you can ask is:   

What happens when you say YES!

Good Selling,  
Bob

Harvest Solutions

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