The Buyer’s Challenge – Part 5
This article is related to a larger discussion about the “Buyer’s Challenge” and references topics introduced in the main article here: The Buyer’s Challenge
If you’re starting here, we are breaking down the challenges that keep buyers from getting to a strong solution, or that would help them avoid a poor solution, by looking at each of 4 different scenarios that can occur.
This article covers Part 5:
- A Strong Solution and a Salesperson with High Skillsets
We can’t go wrong here, right? Surely if we have an eagle-eyed salesperson that really knows their stuff, the problems you’re dealing with, and how their solution impacts each aspect of your project, they would be able to help you get it in place.
Unfortunately, it still doesn’t always happen. Usually because of some of the same issues discussed in other scenarios found in the Buyer’s Challenge, the buyer may find themselves in this quadrant and either go with a sub-par solution or decide to stick with the status quo.
Missing details from the buyer can result in no solution.
Either from their previous research or talking to other vendors, buyers may begin to get confused by all of the information and have their perspective skewed in a negative way. It can become overwhelming and, if they are not leaning on their sales counterpart, they could miss a strong solution.
Poor problem cost analysis may prevent budget approval.
When internal stakeholders and decision makers aren’t getting the full picture, they may not be able to see the value or ROI in a solution. If the buyer didn’t leverage the salesperson’s resources to help sell this idea internally or did a poor job of getting all the details out and on the table, the decision may not be as clear as it could be.
Again, competition could negatively impact the ability to see the right solution.
This is definitely a recurring theme in this analysis. When we have been misinformed or have vastly different solutions to compare, it’s easy to make the wrong decision. It’s going to be important to really understand the differences between options and take time to understand how they may impact the future state of our business.
How I’ve personally seen this scenario play out:
The first thing I think of here is the whole idea of doing your own health diagnosis through WebMD.
We like to think we can be as knowledgeable as our physicians because we read a 5-minute article and are now some kind of qualified expert.
However, when that tends to happen, we have a skewed perspective before we ever talk to the real experts. It could even lead us to not pursue that alternative opinion.
Having sold services in cybersecurity for years, I’d run into people all the time that had misunderstandings about their level of risk. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “we don’t have any risk” – (sorry to say but you all have risk).
Buying cybersecurity services was always a tricky thing to budget for and I’d see a lot of people struggle with their ability to measure the cost of a high-risk environment. It depends on several factors: the probability of an attack (your likelihood), the cost of an attack (your impact), the risk reduction of the solutions, and the related cost of those solutions.
While many of those factors appear as opinions (based on what you believe the probability is), much of it is measurable through a detailed risk assessment.
The catch is that there’s so much misinformation, biases, and false statistics getting passed around, that it’s an uphill battle for a salesperson to help convey this information to the appropriate stakeholders and decision makers on the buyer’s side of the process.
With this in mind, I’d see this particular part of the Buyer’s Challenge play out quite often. It’d typically take a breach for people to experience the cost of an attack firsthand and begin to understand the ROI behind the services I’d sell.
How do you avoid this?
As you go through the process of buying solutions, continue to keep an open mind and adapt your understanding of your business needs. This is something that will be necessary before, during, and after talking to vendors.
Really nail the cost analysis related to your problems so you can better measure the impacts of a solution. There may not be an immediate return on investment, so make sure it’s clear when that will happen and factor that into the decision process.
When you find a knowledgeable partner to help through the sales process, make sure they really understand you and your situation as best as possible. When they provide recommendations that are different from others, dig deeper to understand why.
Continue Exploring The Buyer's Challenge
This article is just part of a larger discussion. Explore other scenarios and solutions as we continue exploring The Buyer’s Challenge:
The next posts in this series will drop over the week and the links above will be made active as it releases.
If you want to follow along, be sure to sign up for the newsletter through the form below.
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Ryan Smith
Ryan's experience across cybersecurity, sales, insurance, technology, education, and mathematics have helped him become a business-oriented problem solver that can simplify complex topics.
His eclectic and diverse background is now able to be leveraged by businesses that are interested in outside perspectives to help them overcome challenges.
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