Re:Enterprise
by CurtMonash on Tuesday January 29, 2013 @06:49AM
(#5133456)
You are not selling to "a" person. You are selling to a group of people, with a variety of biases and self-interest, not all of whom you will necessarily even meet. That's what makes sales complex.
Re:Enterprise
by jacques_chester on Tuesday January 29, 2013 @07:15AM
(#5133555)
A lot of the time, there is a particular individual who has the cheque-signing power up to $X. For such a person there is a psychological distance from the act of spending -- it's not a personal loss if the purchase doesn't pan out. Whereas for individuals spending their own money, the simulation heuristic makes purchases of unexperienced goods or services much scarier.
Hence my "monopoly money" remark.
I think you have correctly reflected that a purchasing decision may have input from many different parties. But these people matter from a sales perspective only so far as they influence the decision of the person with the chequebook.
Re:Enterprise
by notahacker on Tuesday January 29, 2013 @11:29AM
(#5134813)
The flip side of that is there's usually little for that particular individual to personally gain from spending that monopoly money, even if it actually helps department X cut costs or raise sales dramatically, whilst a conspicuously bad change to companies' spending patterns may still get them fired.
In this very thread people are griping about the "difficulty" of selling to businesses. I don't know what to make of that.
When you sell to a business you still sell to a person, it's just that said person feels like they are paying with monopoly money. They have a psychological distance that a consumer just doesn't have.
I'm interested about your observation on the size of our domestic markets changing our thinking. Possibly. It would be interesting to see where the Chinese startup scene are focusing their efforts; they are already dealing with a USA-sized middle class and it will only get bigger.