​​​​Christopher Sopko

Regardless of the product being sold every "complex" sale will always have multiple people involved in the decision making process and these people will "evaluate" the solution being proposed based upon a variety of different criteria.  An important thing to remember is that the criteria that each one of these "evaluators" use might be business related and/or personal in nature.  

 

Identifying and selling to each of the people evaluating the sale is the first step in a successful sale.  The four different groups that need to be uncovered follow:

 

• "Financial" Evaluators– This is the person (or small group of people) that will evaluate your solution from a financial standpoint.  This person (or people) will typically look at the ROI, how the investment fits into their internal budget process and signs off on the release of the available funds.  They certainly have the final power to say “no”, but they will be just one voice in saying “yes”.

 

• "Expert" Evaluators– Again, this is the person (or people) who will evaluate your solution from a technical nature.  They are often engineers or operations people and they will be typically looking for the technical answers to questions about yield, accuracy, reliability, on-site support, etc.  These are the people who will put their seal of approval on a solution to say that “yes, this product or solution will meet our technical needs.”  These people can certainly say “no”, but most of the time they do not have the ultimate ability to provide the final “yes” to the purchase.

 

• "Operator" Evaluators– These are the people that will actually use your product or service.  They will be evaluating it based upon how it will affect them on a day to day basis once it is installed and operational.  They will often be able to point out deficiencies in the practicality of a solution based upon their years of experience.  They will not want to accept a solution if it will make their jobs more difficult. 

 

• "Fan" – A "fan" is someone within an organization or closely related to the organization that genuinely wants you to be successful in selling your product.  As an example a "fan" could be a product champion that utilized your equipment at a different company and who is strongly pushing for your solution. Another example of a fan might be a consultant who has experience with your solutions and who is interested in working with you again.  They are important to the sale in that they can provide you with information that you might not be able to get through normal channels.  They can also help to confirm information given to your sales team during the questioning or “discovery” process.