Progressive Distributor - Getting through to DMUs

Getting through to DMUs

by Richard Vurva

When you’re calling on a large company for the first time, reaching the proper decision-making unit (DMU) can be difficult. If you’re like most industrial distributors, several people within an organization may have buying authority for the products and services you sell.

Where do you start? How can you find the right person (or people) to contact?

First, write down the possible titles of someone who makes decisions about your products and services. When you call the company for the first time, you may have to explain what this person does, so make sure you can deliver a clear explanation of this decision-maker’s role.

“Big companies are really a bunch of small organizations that make autonomous decisions. Very few decisions are made for the entire organization,” says Jill Konrath of White Bear Lake, Minn., an expert in complex sales strategies and founder of the SellingToBigCompanies.com Web site.

Decide where you want to go in the big company, Konrath says. Sometimes your targeted niche is well defined and you only do business with manufacturing. Other times your product/service fits better in certain areas of the company. Maybe you have a better chance for sales success in divisions that are growing? Or maybe you do better when they’re struggling?

Even if you could work in any area of the company, narrow your focus to get your foot in the door. Pick some places to get started and be specific so you can say, “I want to speak to the person in charge of:
• Logistics and warehouse design in the indirect materials area.
• Safety training programs in the manufacturing business unit.
• Making decisions on MRO suppliers at your Chicago plant.
• Shortening time-to-profitability in new product introductions.”

“If your prospective buyer is hidden deep within an organization, it will take multiple calls to find the ultimate decision-maker. Just keep asking for help along the way. Most people are more than willing to give you guidance if you’re specific enough about who you need to speak with,” Konrath says.

Constantly be on the lookout for names that can help you get into accounts. Scour the business sections of your local newspapers. Read trade journals. If you work with other non-competing distributors, leverage their contacts. Find other salespeople or business owners in related market segments willing to share information and knowledge about key accounts.

Be aware of gatekeepers
Don’t be discouraged if you run into a gatekeeper who refuses to put you through to the person you want to reach. Getting through to the DMU depends on your message, says Jeffrey Gitomer, author of “The Sales Bible” and “Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless.” When a gatekeeper asks, “What’s this in reference to?” eight times out of 10 the call will not go through, he says.

To convince the gatekeeper to let you through, you must be perceived as someone with something of value to say.

“Never offer to save anyone money. That is one of the biggest mistakes salespeople make,” says Gitomer. “They think a message about saving someone money will entice the prospect to pick up the phone.”

A promise of saving money may backfire, making you sound like the long-distance telephone companies who call you at dinnertime with a promise to cut your phone bill.

“A promise of saving money ticks people off. Earning more profit or increasing productivity will gain you the attention of any corporate executive,” Gitomer says.

You should also avoid saying, “Did you receive the brochure I sent?” says Jerry Hocutt, a national speaker and sales trainer from Kent, Wash. “The answer most of the time will be a stalling tactic. The recipient will say ‘No,’ or ‘Yes, but I haven’t read it yet,’ or ‘I don’t know.’”

Instead, Hocutt suggests following these three steps:

1) As you’re talking with the prospect on the phone on the initial call, after asking “Can I send you a brochure?” make sure you ask, “Will you read it?” By asking them to read it, you create “commitment and consistency.” In a nutshell, commitment and consistency gets someone to take a stand, go on record, say they will do something. When the brochure arrives, they will remember they told you they would look at it.

2) The next step is to send something bulky in the envelope with the brochure. By sending something bulky (an abrasive disc, a calendar or a pen), you increase their curiosity, and you increase readership by more than 68 percent.

3) The last step is to have a script by your phone to remind you not to ask, “Did you receive the brochure I sent?” but to start the conversation assuming they received the information and then giving them two talking points included in the brochure.

Tailor your message
Carefully select the person or people to target. Calling too high in the organization or calling on the wrong person not only wastes your time and theirs, it hurts your credibility and therefore your ability to create future relationships, says Mark Lindsay of Priority Management Associates in Asheville, N.C., a sales training company.

Don’t focus just on rank. Every organization is different. There may be individuals who are not high on the organization chart but wield considerable influence, so do your homework.

When you finally get through to the proper DMU, make sure you have an appropriate message, Lindsay says. The higher up in the account you call, the less focus there is on price. If you’re talking to a purchasing agent, it’s always about bottom-line cost. The decision-makers at the senior level, however, are focused on long-term value.

“Have you ever been involved in a deal where your contacts confirmed you had the best product or price, but then you lost the sale? There is a good chance the competition may have been selling at the senior level, addressing key business issues vs. the technical ones or the lowest price,” he says.

Don’t be fooled by titles
Often, an administrative assistant has a great deal of influence. On the other hand, you probably have seen individuals with a high-ranking title, but whose influence in the organization is diminished for a variety of reasons. Maybe they are getting ready to retire or perhaps they are new to the organization and don’t yield much influence yet. The rule of thumb is to target the highest person appropriate for your opportunity plus someone who has the greatest influence with that person.

Senior decision-makers get involved in a buying decision at the beginning and at the end of the process, says Lindsay. At the beginning, they are trying to understand the business issues, establish project objectives and determine the budget. Then they delegate the project to people in the organization they trust.

At the end of an evaluation process, they get involved again to approve or make the final decision (based on recommendations of the evaluation team) and to plan the implementation. At that point they may be hesitant to rule against an internal group appointed to make the recommendation.

“To be truly effective, you need to be calling on senior-level decision-makers very early in the buying cycle. In fact, one of the best times to gain access is when there is no deal on the table. You can discuss the results you have delivered to the organization in the past and provide recommendations for next steps. This is also when it’s easiest to make your internal champions look good and build credibility with them,” says Lindsay.

How to approach senior-level executives
Mark Lindsay suggests three ways salespeople can approach senior-level decision-makers:
• Direct contact: Phone call, letter, e-mail, fax.
• Internal referrals: Direct reports, users, internal champions, peers.
• External referrals: Colleagues, consultants, salespeople, customers.

Which method is most effective? In a study done by Siebel Systems and the University of North Carolina’s Kenan Flagler Business School, researchers interviewed more than 60 senior-level executives to determine how they interacted with salespeople. According to the study, the most effective way for a salesperson to gain access to the executive level was through an internal referral.

•Eighty-four percent of the respondents said they would “usually” or “always” grant an appointment with someone who was recommended internally.

•The next most effective method, at 44 percent, was a referral from someone outside the organization.

•A direct phone call was the least effective way at 20 percent. Preceding the phone call with a letter made only a small difference.

“This is not to say you should never try to gain access with a phone call or letter directly to the person you ultimately want to reach,” says Lindsay. “It does say that you will increase your chances of success tremendously if you can get an inside supporter to get you there.”