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Six Greatest Ideas for Selling Big Ticket Items - Business to Business • 77

In this sort of buying decision there will be the people who are doing the tech-
nical evaluation work, and those who will agree that the evaluation should happen
and decide the outcome.

While you are bound to spend a lot of time with the evaluators, it is vital to
retain regular contact with the other group of decision makers. This can be apolitical
minefield. Most people have been told at some time or other: 'If you go above my
head and sell to my boss I will make sure that you play no more part in this evaluation.'

A variation on this is: 'There is no purpose in your meeting the senior people,
they will merely rubber-stamp my recommendation.' In both of these cases some-
one, often the technical buyers, are acting as gatekeepers and preventing the selling
team having access to decision makers.

Once again you have to plan how you are going to prove the added value of
having this access. You will not always succeed, but you have to try. Why?

First, you need a statement from the top if you are going to understand the
context of the proposed project. You need to hear the senior managers express what
they regard as important in order to aim your proposal at the heart of their business.
Second, you avoid the internal politics of the buying company, and third, you get
some control of the whole buying cycle.

Here's a good, though unintentional, example of this. When I was a rookie
salesperson, I attended a meeting that included the great Jules Thorn, the founder
of Thorn EMI and currently its head. I thought no more of it until I visited the
managing director of one of his subsidiaries. I mentioned that meeting and the ef-
fect was electric. The MD came forward in his seat, 'You've just met Jules Thorn,'
he gasped, 'Did he mention my business?' I had inadvertently revolutionised my
credibility and control with this customer.

So, 'screw your courage to the sticking place,' and go in high.
A relationship with a senior individual can in some cases be the lifeblood of a
struggling new business. I know of one company with a leading-edge product who
sold it into a major local authority. Through a combination of the technical difficul-
ties of the product, a surge in deliveries to other companies and some pure bad luck,