Consider this situation. Two checkout stands at a grocery store are wearing out and need to be replaced. The sales person from their point-of-sale systems vendor meets with the store manager, identifies the need and proposes a solution. What could be simpler? Surely the manager is ready to place the order.
What happens after the sales person leaves? In discussions with the staff and the regional manager, the question of replacing the checkout stands raises other questions. Should we replace them with standard checkout stands or increase the number of automated checkout stands? If we expand the number of automated checkout stands will the labor union raise any concerns? Will the Region approve our plans to renovate the store, in which case should we delay replacing the checkout stands?
These interconnections can easily lead the store manager to postpone any decisions on the checkout stands. The situation is not that bad yet and it’s too much work to sort out all the related problems.
This little scenario demonstrates that buyers exist in a sea of interconnected problems. Solving one problem has implications for others in a cascade that quickly stagnates the problem-solving impulse.
One of two events will happen to break this impasse.
- The problem with the checkout stands gets so bad that the store manager has to take action and place the order.
- The store manager figures out how to resolve the other internal questions and places the order.
What is the role of the sales person and the company’s marketing organization (besides waiting for the customer to call when the equipment fails)? The seller can increase the sense of urgency about the problem AND lower the sense of disruption and paralysis in the buyer’s system.
- The sales person can persuade the store manager that the problem is one that the manager MUST solve by pointing out the negative consequences of not taking action (lower productivity from worn out equipment that breaks down, customer dissatisfaction, unplanned downtime when the checkout stand breaks and stands idle while a new one is ordered and replaced). This communication is an important part of Marketing’s role, to demonstrate how the cost of failure exceeds the cost to change.
- The sales person can facilitate the manager’s buying decision by guiding the manager to recognize and align the systems issues, manage the risks, and get buy-in from the decision team. The seller can’t do it for the buyers, but the seller can do it WITH them and help them to do it on their own from the inside.
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