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What makes a complex sale? A lot of sales people look at the signals and signs; How many people? how many meetings? how far are sellers willing to travel for meetings? How much paperwork is involved in the sign-off?
Sales people think that those are the things that make it complex but that is sales professionals thinking about the complexity from their side and not from the customers perspective.
What makes it complex for the customer is how much is riding on this? How much trouble are they going to get in if they get this wrong? The essence of that is, how big of a commitment are sales people asking their customers to make?
If a customer is getting one bottle of water from a vending machine because they’re thirsty, they won’t have to talk to a person or consider whether they want the one on the left or the one on the right. There’s no level of commitment.
But suppose a customer is choosing who supplies the water regularly to a great big office full of people, then maybe they will have concerns around; Does it arrive on time? Is it low disruption when it does? Do we order the right amount of volume for the month? Are there extra charges in the summer when we must go through more? Do they supply the little cone cups that come with it? Are they entirely practical on a table anyway? Are there any environmental issues of the waste? Do they pick up the rubbish that is generated by the bottles as they drop off the new lot?
Let’s suppose that the customer is running a big event for people from their international offices and the event includes their key stakeholders. Suddenly, the customer has started to care about what impression this gives to other people so maybe they start to care about not only is there some still and some sparkling but what kind of branding is on there and how does that reflect on them?
The more that is riding on it for them, the more complex it is. That’s why the customer is going to get more people involved in their decision, that’s why they are going to want to see more evidence from the seller to prove that they can do what they say they can do. That’s why the customer is going to make sure that they are doing the right thing to fulfil their needs in a way that fulfils their budget.
The more complex it is to the customer is based on the commitment the seller is asking them to make. How long have they got to commit to this and what is the risk in getting it wrong? As that goes up for the customer so should the planning and the level of strategy that sellers must apply and the depth of the questions that they prepare to ask?
