Page 13 - HBR's 10 Must Reads - On Sales

BONOMA
Idea in Brief

When is a buyer not really a buyer? and offers six behavioral clues
How can the best product at the for identifying the real decision
lowest price turn off buyers? Are makers.
there anonymous leaders who
make the actual buying decisions? • Determining how buyers view
As these questions suggest, the their self-interest. All buyers
reality of buying and selling is act selfishly, but they some-
often not what it seems. What’s times miscalculate. As a result,
more, salespeople often overlook diagnosing motivation is one
the psychological and emotional of the most difficult manage-
factors that figure strongly in buy- ment tasks to do accurately.
The author suggests several
ing and selling. By failing to ob- techniques to determine how
serve these less tangible aspects buyers choose their own self-
of selling, a vendor can lose sales interest.
without understanding why.
• Gathering and applying
In this article, first published in psychological intelligence.
1982, Bonoma sets up a procedure There is no formula for placing
for analyzing buying decisions sound psychological analyses
and tells sellers how to apply the magically in the sales staff’s
resulting framework to specific hands. However, the author
situations. Steps in the procedure offers three guidelines—make
include the following:
sure that sales calls are highly
• Identifying the actual decision productive and informative,
makers. Though it may come listen to the sales force, and
as a surprise, power does reward rigorous fact gathering,
not correlate perfectly with analysis, and execution—to
organizational rank. The author help managers increase sales
outlines five bases of power effectiveness.

as buyers constantly look not only for the best deal but also for the
vendor that best understands them and their needs. It is this under-
standing and the targeted selling that results from it that can most
benefit marketing managers.

Buying a corporate jet
The personal aspects and their complexities become apparent when
one looks closely at an example of the buying process: the purchase
of a business jet, which carries a price tag in excess of $3 million. The
business-jet market splits obviously into two segments: those com-
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