Quiz: Coping with the Purchasing Dept.

Scenario: You've cold-called a departmental manager who really needs your solution. However, she tells you that your product category is always purchased through the centralized purchasing group, and that they always make the decisions on which product to purchase.

Here are your choices:

• Submit a proposal to the purchasing group. This manager is only a stakeholder, so you might as well start over with the real decision-makers.
• Execute an end-run around the purchasing group. This manager a real need for your solution so, with her help, you can bypass the bureaucrats.
• Work with the manager on a cost-benefit analysis. Getting more deeply involved in the account will help you understand the issues better.

If you simply move your sales effort to the purchasing department, you'll be working with people who don't really understand the need for your offering. As a result, they're likely to take shortcuts in analyzing its value. For example, if there are already vendors selling similar solutions to that customer, the purchasing department will probably consider them "favored vendors" and treat you as an also-ran.

Contrariwise, if you try to do an end-run around the purchasing department, they're likely to see the purchase as an assault on their turf. They'll use every means possible to block the sale, and use the mandate of their department to keep the deal from going through, even it means that the manager's need will go unsatisfied. Weird and unproductive, I know, but that's the way bureaucracies work.

The correct solution is to work with the manager to build an ironclad cost-benefit analysis that emphasizes the unique elements of your solution. Then you BOTH go to the purchasing department and hand them the results of your research, so that they can bring the idea forward as their own. Essentially, you lay the groundwork to make the bureaucrats look like heroes, and then sit back and collect your commission.

The above is based upon a conversation with Robert Nadeau, managing principal of the Industry Performance Group). He's the go-to guy when it comes to protecting your prices from discounting, among other things.

READERS: Have you ever run into this scenario? What did you try and how did it work?