Help Buyers Make Better Decisions

January 26th, 2012

By Tom Reilly, author of “Value-Added Selling”

The objective of a buying decision is to optimize your purchasing power while satisfying your needs. Buyers that intentionally narrow their definition of pain and gain consequently limit the definition of the other. If the goal is to maximize gain and minimize pain, buyers must be willing to explore fully pain and gain. Pain is more than the price the buyer pays. It is everything that buyers sacrifice to acquire, use, transform, replace, and dispose of the solution that they are considering. Pain includes: usage costs, energy consumption, maintenance, service intervals, replacement costs, inefficiency, etc.

As price buyers intentionally narrow the definition of pain, they intentionally narrow the definition of gain. Gain is more than short-term price differences among supply alternatives. Gain includes:

• Empowering customers to do something that they were unable to do in the past;
• Helping customers pursue new opportunities, increase their competitive advantage, and satisfy their end user customers
• Increase productivity while fully leveraging all of the buyer’s resources
• Operate more efficiently

When buyers limit the definition of pain, it restricts the conversation on how you can discuss gain. By default, a comprehensive definition of cost demands a more complete definition of return on investment. The central fallacy of price shopping is that buyers can buy the best for the least. Price shoppers so narrowly define success that they are willing to settle for only a cheap price, even when a better solution is available.

You must view your job as helping buyers make better buying decisions, not just defending your price. This happens when you help buyers take a broader and longer range view of their needs and your solution. You gain as you prove your value.