Selling To and Negotiating With Today’s Tougher, Strategic Procurer/Buyer/Sourcer
When I’m asked about how much selling has changed in the past few years, the first point I always raise is the significant (and troublesome) changes in corporate procurement.
Strategic procurement/buying/sourcing isn’t a new trend. It’s been around for years. Although they didn’t invent it, I look at Walmart as the organization that drove execution of the strategic sourcing model to new levels in the 90′s.
Desperate to reduce expenses beginning in late 2008, executive leadership in many corporations looked at the Walmart model and tweaked or entirely revamped how they would deal with suppliers going forward.
So now, as a result of a glut of information available to buyers, salespeople enter into the customer buying cycle much later, then have to deal with a buying organization that may have little regard for their customer, or, and this is the troublesome part, the business unit acquiring the product or service. ESR has been on the sell side of this process, and it isn’t fun.
As the fourth in our Sales Thought-Leader Series, I’ve invited four experts in the area of dealing with strategic sourcing. We’ll be having a conversation on that subject Wednesday. No PowerPoints, no scripts, no rehearsed responses, no B.S. Plus live questions by phone from the audience. If you’re interested in the archived panels we’ve had, you can find them on this Sales Thought-Leader Panel Series page.
Selling To and Negotiating With Today’s Tougher, Strategic Procurers/Buyers/Sourcers
This panel has already taken place.
Panelists:
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Julie Thomas, President and CEO Brian Dietmeyer, President and CEO Ron D’Andrea, President Stephanie Woods, Executive VP |
Listen to archive (MP3 / 50 mb) |
One more thing:
ESR is offering a complimentary webinar for sales training and sales performance improvement providers only on Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 12:00 ET. You can find more information and registration about the sales trainer-only webinar here.
Photo source: Fotolia.com
Filed under: Buyers, Interview, sales training, Sales Training Companies
[...] During 2011, ESR saw increased demand for process and sales training content in coaching (for sales management) and selling to the corporate procurement function. [...]
[...] Here’s access to the complete podcast Selling To and Negotiating With Today’s Tougher, Strategic Procurer/Buyer/Sourcer [...]
Dave, an interesting topic. But the link to the mp3 doesn’t work – even after you register for the site.
Can you fix it? Thanks.
Hi Michael,
Sorry you had trouble. Actually the link works fine. It’s not streamed, so you have to wait for the whole file to download before you listen. I suggest you try again.
Hi Dave;
Thanks for putting the extra effort in getting the link to work, I have now downloaded the mp3. I am interested in what Brian Dietmeyer has to say, given my own background in negotiation.
[...] Oh, customers still need educating, but the use of the internet has made it so that sellers are entering the buying cycle much later on than ever before, and they are having to do a lot of uneducating before they can re-educate [...]