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Sybase Inc.

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February 25, 2006

Selling to the Committee

by Sridhar Ramanathan

If you think sales cycles just seem to be getting longer not shorter these days, you’re not alone. Marketing News has a nice article entitled “It Takes a Committee to Buy Into B-to-B”. The article cites a SiriusDecisions statistic that says “In 2005, 3.5 more people on average were involved in making a purchasing decision than in 2001.” This can include roles such as gatekeeper, champion, influencer, user, executive, economic buyer, and so on. Plus decision-making seems to be moving up the chain rather than down. Why? It’s about risk. No one wants to make a bad purchase.

The key to selling to the “committee” or team of stakeholders is to nurture many relationships over time. Both sales and marketing play a role from the very first customer contact to ongoing touches with all these stakeholders. The Marketing News article elaborates on how to nurture relationships, and can be found on Brian Carroll’s blog. Brian is CEO of InTouch Inc, a lead generation services company and author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale. I encourage you to checkout his book and the Marketing News article.

Posted February 25, 2006 |
Posted to Sales Effectiveness

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