It’s educational to watch the wax and wane of the influence of the purchasing function across different business sectors and over the economic cycle. It seems to be an inevitable trade-off, when purchasing are in power the business saves money but at a cost – users don’t always get what they want or need.

A customer of ours summed it up as “when times are tough purchasing get in the way, when the pressure is on to deliver, we can get our way”.

The best defence against a tyrannical purchasing function, (and this can apply throughout the public sector too) are users who are prepared to stick up for themselves and make sure they get what they need and want. But to make this happen as a salesman you must have successfully established your proposition as the only one that’s going to be acceptable, the only one that can meet the real business need, inevitably this means a solution sell, not just a slightly higher score on an evaluation matrix.

As always we’re looking for “what’s in it for them?” and purchasing managers are gatekeepers who are measured on what they save. Typically they want to create a level playing field, a commodity buying process, where they can play one supplier off against the other and drive down the price. Once a detailed specification is available the battle lines are drawn.

It’s an old maxim but a true one, the only way to counter this unenviable situation is to build a rapport with the user, develop trust, work with them to understand whether your solution meets the needs and then articulate (in an unarguable way) just how much value you, and only you, can deliver.

It’s not easy and in reality there are some situations where you can do this and some where you can’t. Good qualification and having plenty of opportunities mean you can walk away when it’s the right thing to do. That’s often preferable to succumbing to a draconian buying process and a shoot-out on price.

If you’re encountering purchasing as an obstacle perhaps the sales skills of your team could do with a bit of sharpening or your lead generation may need an upgrade. If you’d like to find out how we do that, click here.


"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing."
Oscar Wilde