Not all Decision Criteria are Created Equally

Everyone has criteria when it comes to buying something. When it’s just an individual purchase, these are relatively simple. When it’s an organisational purchase, there will be more people involved across different departments.

When I buy a pair of trainers for example, my criteria would be the size of my feet, whether they are for sport or fashion and the colour I would prefer.

As you can see here, the above criteria - shoe size, occasion and colour - obvious as they are, are not all equal in weight when it comes to actually buying the shoes. A shoe in the wrong size isn’t going to work no matter if everything else is perfect. The colour however, is more subjective and has multiple acceptable outcomes that would result in a purchase.

The same is true for the decision criteria within the organisation you are selling to; they will not all be created equal. So how do you decide what is more important than others? Where do you focus your energy?

WHO HOLDS THE TRUMP CARD?

Whilst you will have identified all of the different criteria from all of the different departments, it is well worth your time considering these in line with the Organisation Chart and who your Champion and Economic Buyer are.

What are their top criteria?
What features, functions or pay-offs are top priority for them?
Can they exert greater power and influence than other departments to get these criteria to the top of the list?

If the answer to the last point is yes, then you need to identify these criteria and weave them into your sales strategy.

Say for example, you discover that return on investment (ROI) is going to be the absolute deal breaker when it comes to signing off the deal. When running the metrics, you know that your solution delivers a ROI several months earlier than your competitors. This piece of information is key and is one of your differentiators vs. your competitors.

What is the reason that you achieve the ROI in this timeframe vs. your competitors? Whatever the reason, the answer is another differentiator.

Make sure your Champion is fully on board with this knowledge and pushes your differentiators in internal meetings for you throughout the sales process, especially when dealing with the Economic Buyer.

BIASED BEINGS - MAKING THE MEDDIC SALES PROCESS WORK FOR YOU

Unfortunately you can’t get by on one criterion alone no matter if it is at the top of the list, the others are still in play and are still important.

Here is when another arrow in your bow comes in useful; bias.

Human beings are naturally biased towards certain solutions and outcomes. Bias is often unconscious, but it is universal.

Whenever a problem has been identified, the owner of that pain will automatically start thinking of a solution, and it will probably be a solution that they are familiar with. You or your competitors might have already influenced their thinking via marketing messaging or previous discussions - it would be a rare day that someone thinks up, out of the blue, a solution that has never been encountered before.

So, your customer will already have some preconceived idea as to what the solution to their pain will likely be, now you have to find out what that is. When you find out what the customer bias is in each of the decision criteria areas, you can start influencing them.

Let's look at the areas:

1. Technical decision criteria: functions and capabilities required to solve the issue

Technical bias might be influenced by a solution that is already known, that the customer has been exposed to via marketing or might have used in a previous business. If you know that a customer has used certain software for something similar in the past, this is likely what they have in mind when thinking of a solution to their problem.

If the bias is not towards your solution, how is your solution better than that?
What can your solution do that the preconceived solution can’t?
How does your solution align with their technology preferences?

2. Economic decision criteria: payback required to justify the expense

Economic bias might centre around a preconceived idea of how long it will take to see a return on investment and how big this might be. This bias is likely held by the Economic Buyer and influenced by the team creating the customer’s business case.

2. Relationship decision criteria: the sorts of companies that your customer wants to deal with

Relationship decision criteria is the most subjective of all the criteria and as such is harder to pin down. However, your customer might be used to working with a software provider that can provide 24/7 availability and is biased towards solutions with a very strong customer support set-up. They may also have a preference to work with companies that have active user groups that they can participate in and use for industry networking.

These biases may not make it into a formal decision criteria list but will be, consciously or unconsciously, influencing the priorities on the list.

In summary, decision criteria is like a shopping list for your customer. Without identifying the criteria customers will use to compare your solution, you are just guessing if you are a good fit. To take the guesswork out, you need to:

Get to the heart of everyone’s shopping list.
Find the bias hidden within, and
Tailor your communication to deliver your key differentiators against the list to those holding the trump cards.

Once you have succeeded in these areas, your sale just got a whole lot easier.

If you are interested in new ideas, inspir’em sales meeting exercises and lesson plans are available to continue the development journey of your teams.

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