Are You Guilty Of Decision Creep?

Are you a perpetrator of decision creep?Decision creep is a self-inflicted injury that occurs when a seller falls into the trap of pushing a purchase decision to higher levels in the prospect's company than is required. It slows down decision cycles and increases your risk of not winning the order.The problem starts with the common sales assumption that it is universally desirable to sell to the C-Suite. It isn’t.Not all products are created equal.The product or service you sell falls into one of two categories. It is either strategic or tactical for the customer. Strategic products will typically require a broader internal consensus and approval at higher levels. Tactical products don’t. In other words, are you selling mission critical networking infrastructure or paper clips?I know that all sellers would like to think that their products or services are strategically important to their customers. The fact is, in most cases, they’re simply not.This doesn’t mean your product or service isn’t important. It’s just not strategic. Sometimes a vendor is just a vendor, not a “partner." This also doesn’t mean the customer doesn’t value their relationship with your company or that they don’t appreciate the great customer service you provide. But, not every product is strategic and not every product can command the time and attention of the C-Suite.Strategic vs. Tactical ProductsWhat are strategic products? These are mission-critical purchases or acquisitions that can measurably affect the revenue and/or profitability of a company. In rough terms, any product or service that can demonstrably have a measurable impact on revenue and profitability, or that has a certain level of complexity and a price that is large in relation to the company’s revenues, can be a strategic product.Tactical products and services are most everything else. These are items that a company can’t necessarily operate or function without, but the price and complexity level of the product or service is low relative to the size of the company. Tactical products and services are relatively commoditized, meaning that the buyers have multiple vendors to choose from and pricing is often one of the primary purchase considerations.Well over 90% of the purchase decisions a company makes in the course of a business year are for tactical products or services. Think of a typical $50 million revenue company. This is a classic small business but it makes thousands of purchases every year. In very few cases are the actual decisions about which of these thousands of products or services to purchase made at the C-level. (There just isn’t enough time in the day.)Decision CreepI worked once with a client’s sales guy, Jim, who always oversold his product. By oversell I don’t mean that he promised it would do things it couldn’t. Rather, he was always pushing to sell his product, a design tool used by engineers, to the C-Suite. The design tool he was selling was a tactical product and, typically, the decision to buy his product was made by the engineer who would use it; sometimes by an engineering manager. But, Jim had taken a sales training class that taught that he always had to sell to the C-Suite and he wasn’t to be dissuaded.In one case Jim had finally penetrated a large account that previously had purchased almost exclusively from one of his main competitors. In fact, they were ready to buy from him, but on Jim's insistence, his chief internal advocate set up a meeting with his CEO. When Jim met him, the first words out of the CEO’s mouth were, “Why am I in this meeting? I’m not involved in this decision.” This was followed by “But, since you asked, I do have an opinion...” Which was that they should stick with the incumbent.Don’t be like Jim and let decision creep come back to bite you.Determine if your product is strategic or tactical. For tactical products and services, the responsibility for most purchase decisions resides at a lower level in your customers' organizations than you think. Instead of reaching too high, look for the actual decision maker for your product or service.Who’s the actual decision maker? Come back here next week for part 2 of this article. I’ll give you some simple tips you can use to find and qualify the actual decision maker for your products.