Written and unwritten rules: focusing on Decision process

Forecast slippage is a regular feature of most sales organisations. However, by better understanding our customer’s Decision process, we can forecast more accurately and avoid last-minute surprises that affect our business’s predictability.

A Decision process is just that: a process that someone, whether an individual or an organisation, goes through whenever a decision must be made to make a purchase. 

This can be as small as ordering a new stationery item or as large as a multi-million-pound contract on some new software, but small or large: everything has a process and steps to buy. 

Unlike buying a new box of pens or printer paper, enterprise sales will involve more than one department within the organisation. Each department will have its policy to work through for the Decision process. 

Examples of such company policies for buying enterprise technology include:

• How the company assesses need.
• How they evaluate solutions.
• How they create a shortlist for solutions and vendors.
• How they technically validate solutions.
• How the company creates and evaluates business cases.
• How they go through the purchasing, contracting, and issuing of signed papers.

Multiple steps and processes must be followed within each step above. From giving a demo of your solution onwards, you should document each step of the process along the journey you and your customer are on.

By the end of the purchasing journey, for a large enterprise purchase, our experience tells us there are around 80 steps in your customer’s decision process; this will not be a short document.

The process sets the agenda

Our job in sales is to understand this decision process in intricate detail.

Although making this decision process document (otherwise known as a close plan or mutual success plan) might sound like an arduous task, it has multiple benefits which will save time, energy and money:

1. Living agenda

Documenting the decision process in a close plan or mutual success plan creates a living document detailing the agenda for every customer meeting in the sales process, acting as a forecast document for the deal’s timeline.

2. Customer’s checklist

This document can help hold the customer accountable by ensuring they progress the deal as fast as possible.

3. Identify red flags

Missed or delayed items on the document act as red flags, identifying risks which need to be mitigated by creating an action plan or reassessing where your opportunity is within the forecast.

4. Repeatable process

A similar document will apply to each deal you sign; it will not have to be recreated from scratch with every new deal. 

Accuracy in sales is built on our ability to forecast and mitigate risk. Documenting the customer’s process ensures we can be objectively paranoid about what we might have missed. The document can be used to discuss the deal with your colleagues. Processes will be similar across all enterprise customers, so documenting the process can be used as a template repeatedly. These documents become checklists for other deals.

Your future self will thank you.

What the policy doesn’t say

Unfortunately, the written policy and process document, no matter how all-encompassing it might seem, is only half the story when it comes to the Decision process.

Running alongside the written rules of the Decision processes that each department will be working to are the unwritten rules. The unwritten rules are the politics of getting a deal signed in a purchasing cycle when something must get done quickly. Understanding these unwritten rules can shrink the time to reach the finish line. 

Typically, this comes down to “who” has the authority or “who” can pull favours to get things done quickly when company priorities compel them to rush the process. 

Imagine a situation when selling security software. Often seen as an insurance policy, security software can naturally be something budgeted for a future date. However, suppose a competitor of your customer has a serious cybersecurity incident. It’s easy to imagine a situation where a board will assess their own risk and rush an implementation of new software to ensure they do not suffer the same fate.

In these situations, as risk becomes a board priority and business imperative, Champions of the solution often flex the process to shortcut decisions and timelines.

Success is mutual 

Our customers want value and outcomes. While their procurement decision process is how they buy something, it only gives them a contractual commitment, not the value their business needs.

The end goal must be to get the customer set up with your product or service and receiving value from the solution.

So, when working through this document with your customer, calling it a “Mutual Success Plan” helps to put focus on the customer outcome. It will help them understand when they will start to see the benefits of the solution you are selling them.

The customer sees value in the finish line, and we can work back from there, understanding all the critical tasks and actions to be completed.

This change of focus helps motivate the customer to work with you to progress contracts and deals as part of their journey to the delivery of their success.

As this is a document that you will be sharing with the customer throughout the sales cycle, make sure that you word it accordingly, using the customer’s terminology and keep the focus on the customer outcomes. 

If your customer can easily see and be repeatedly reminded of the successful outcome of purchasing your solution, focusing on their success will ultimately deliver your success.

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