True or false? Procurement is an obstacle to the sales process. Their mandate is to say “no” and make B2B purchasing decisions unreasonably difficult and rigorous. They shut things down at will and redirect buyers to other vendors. True or not, does your sales team believe these to be true?
Misperceptions such as these can poison relationships and prevent your team from closing sales. What’s needed is an objective understanding of why these actions may occur. It’s certainly not because procurement is an enemy to the sales process, but they do play a vital role that must be understood, respected, and accommodated.
A value selling approach is key to streamlining and enhancing your sales process and making procurement part of the solution instead of a perceived problem. Here’s how changing this relationship can improve sales results.
Understand Procurement’s Point of View
Many biases and misperceptions contain some element of truth. A former CPO (Chief Procurement Officer) one told me that this “rejectionist” mindset comes from a long history of being burned with unsatisfactory and unused purchases made by its internal client. Because buying decisions were often initiated and concluded hastily and without adequate investigation, the optimistic projections and promised benefits were not realized.
Procurement’s concerns often reflect the CFO’s attempt to link the supposed benefits of the purchase to the department’s budgetary bottom line. This skepticism can result in the dreaded response, “If this offering is going to save that much money, let’s deduct that from next year’s budget.” Most buyers are unwilling to commit to that level of confidence in the benefits of the purchase; hence the delay or rejection of the sale.
Value selling can change this dynamic. By more explicitly defining and quantifying the solution’s benefits and linking those benefits to the purchase, value selling gets at the heart of what’s most important to the procurement officer and CFO.
Address Concerns Using Value Selling
CPOs and CFOs don’t want to stop their internal customers’ purchases—they just want to make sure they are needed and effective. If that means adding a new supplier or new feature to the corporate portfolio, then that’s okay as long as it truly adds value.
It is essential that internal customers (your buyers) can communicate the language of value throughout the purchase approval process. Your sales team can help by providing a strong and persuasive business case that can be shared throughout the organization.
To further ensure your success in selling the value of your solution, we suggest collaborating with procurement and finance stakeholders when creating your value model and its underlying assumptions. Having actual results from other customers is a good start. Personalizing those assumptions for each prospect is better.
Do whatever is reasonable to ensure that all stakeholders believe:
- The model is fundamentally correct
- The model’s assumptions are valid and applicable in this situation
- The model’s results are measurable and meaningful in that company’s reporting systems
If procurement and finance are on board with your value model and its assumptions, they are more likely to be on board with the purchase. It’s as simple as that.
This post was updated on January 29, 2025 to reflect the latest industry trends.
Resources
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