Assessing and Re-Assessing the Decision Makers

by Diane Sanchez, Stephen E. Heiman, and Tad Tuleja

How do different buying functions play out on the ground? And how valuable is it to be able to identify them?

One answer comes from a Miller Heiman client based in Louisville, Kentucky. Mike Wyant, a registered pharmacist, is employed as a pharmacy manager by Syncor International, a distribution group working in alliance with Du Pont to supply hospitals and cardiology clinics with radioactive drugs or, as they are often called, "nuclear" pharmaceuticals. When you hear him explain how Syncor approaches its clients, you understand the growing complexity of the medical market as well as the usefulness of understanding the functions of the individual players.

"We're basically a nuclear pharmacy," explains Mike, "like a Walgreen's that stocks only items with an extremely short shelf life. Because the products we deliver are so technical and so specialized, we deal with sophisticated players and a very specific market."

"The people we talk to most often are nuclear medicine technologists. They're the ones who administer the diagnostic tests -- dynamic lung scans, for example -- that utilize the Du Pont line of radioactive tracers. For years they were practically the only people we dealt with. We would seldom see the physicians who had ordered the tests, or the purchasing people who had signed the budget allotments. We didn't have to. Until recently, nobody questioned such purchases. So we dealt with technologists who served in a dual role, with a focus on specifications as well as the job to be done."

"With the current diversification of health services and the increased competition for patients, that's all changed. More and more, people at the administrative level are becoming involved in technical decisions. When your census is down, Medicare and HMOs are breathing down your neck, and you're trying to run at a profit, you have no choice. For us this means that the playing field is getting crowded. There are people suddenly emerging from the hospital woodwork that a decade ago you barely knew existed. They're having an impact, day to day, on our business.

"The same test that Dr. Smith ordered without comment ten years ago now has to be approved at a much higher level. And sometimes Dr. Smith doesn't get her way. If the director of radiology wants a cheaper test, or if the vice president of purchasing wonders why any test is needed, Syncor's sales are in peril even though our traditional contacts are still hot for our products. More and more we've got to contact the Economic Buyers -- on our own behalf as well as that of the physicians -- to show them that the testing costs are warranted."

Three lessons may be drawn from Mike's example.

First, the example underscores the presence of separate functions in every complex sale. Every time one of Syncor's medical clients buys a radioactive tracer, somebody pays for it, somebody checks it (and Syncor) against specifications, and somebody uses it.

Second, the people performing those functions have different reasons for doing business with Syncor. Those different reasons must be separately addressed.

Third, the funding function, and consequently the visibility of Economic Buyers, intensifies in times of budgetary constraint or perceived risk. In such situations, the role of Economic Buyer may "float" upward. In Mike's case, it can float upward to the vice presidential level.

In a case that another client reported to us, the role of Economic Buyer actually floated, as it were, out the door. Mark Starr, a BFI district sales manager, confirmed something that our experience has proven time and again: identifying Buying Influences, even in solid, existing accounts, can be especially problematic -- and especially valuable -- at contract renewal time. "When you're on a two- or three-year contract cycle," Mark says, "you can never assume that the original players haven't changed. We have a contract coming up for review this year, and we just found out that the guy who was company president when we wrote the original contract has retired. The new president wants to put the whole thing up for bid.

"In cases like this -- and there are plenty of them -- we have to start all over, to reintroduce ourselves. We have to deal with a whole new slate of players or at least a slate of old players with very different responsibilities. It helps us to find out who's there, who's gone, and who we have to deal with now to keep the business."

The "floating" of Economic Buyers is just one factor in the inherent variability of business-to-business selling, and it indicates the need to re-determine for each new selling objective which people are playing the critical decision making roles. One of the most common mistakes in selling to corporations is forgetting that rosters change not just year by year, but sometimes even within a given selling cycle. In these days of downsizing and re-engineering, even if that million-dollar contract is not up for review, it can be fatal to assume that Tim, who bought from you last month, still has the authority (and the interest) to do so today. You determine that by continually re-mapping the field.

From Selling Machine, by Diane Sanchez, Stephen E. Heiman, and Tad Tuleja. © 1997 by Miller Heiman Inc. All rights reserved by permission of Random House, Inc.