B2B salespeople are familiar with the concept of the “buying center” – a group of people responsible for reviewing, analyzing and recommending purchases. The best salespeople cultivate relationships with lots of important folks at the client. They know that focusing on a single decisionmaker is a prescription for a lost sale. (Yet the “decisionmaker” myth persists. Salesperson: “Did a product demo with XYZ corp today.” Boss: “Great. Did you talk to the decisionmaker?”)
Consumer purchases don’t have a buying center, do they? Well, I did a project last year that involved trying to understand why people calling into a telesales center didn’t end up buying anything. The most frequent reason for them saying no? “I need to talk about it with my spouse/mother/sister.” They couldn’t make a decision without the concurrence of someone else.
This has implications for consumer sales of any significant size. Consumer sales channels – especially virtual channels like call centers and websites – are focused on individuals, not groups. They don’t have any easy way of involving that other person who needs to say yes. This was the puzzle my client faced.
Perhaps it’s too complex for consumer marketers to worry about. But by ignoring the buying center, they run the risk that their “buyer” loses his/her energy and commitment between the time they are ready to say yes and the time they get the go-ahead from that other person. That equals lost sales, and lost sales are expensive.
