Boosting confidence in dealing with procurement

Hands up all salespeople who love dealing with procurement departments🤚

If your hand is up, lucky you!

However, for many salespeople, procurement top the list of stakeholders they feel less comfortable and confident dealing with.

There is no magic bullet, however here is a simple suggestion that could potentially help you better understand how procurement see the world…

Invite somebody from your own procurement function to your next sales meeting to share their knowledge and insights. Potential subjects they could talk about include:

1️⃣ How they see their mission and purpose.
2️⃣ A brief overview of their buying process and key decision making criteria.
4️⃣ What they think makes a good salesperson – clue: not the one who gives them everything they ask for!
5️⃣ Which sales behaviours they find impressive and which they find annoying.
6️⃣ Their current challenges, issues and priorities.
7️⃣ And for a good laugh, the worst sales pitch they have ever heard.

Whilst your procurement teams are buying different solutions than the ones you sell, it will still give you useful insights and perspectives.

Behind that unreasonable, demanding ‘tyrant’ is a real human being under significant pressures and with a job to do.