SST® & Four Buyer Influences
SST® Newsletter December 1997 - January 1998
In what feels like a lifetime ago, I was team teaching a college course on Counseling Theories. After studying the likes of Ellis, Freud, Jung, Perls and Rogers we observed that, in practice, many counselors drew from the different models. They might shift from being very Rogerian and long term with one client while being quite directive and Ellis like with another. We referred to this practice as being "eclectic".
The final evaluation had both a written component and an interview with a member of the teaching team. Just by the luck of the draw, I got to do the oral exam with one of our "favorite" students. I asked him, if he were to enter the counseling field that very day, what would his approach be? He responded, "Well, Dr. Tilden, I guess you could call my counseling style epileptic."
As I choked back the coffee I made the mistake of sipping, I thought to myself, "He's probably right".
This anecdote about counseling theories is apropos, because the central premise of SST® is that the processes of counseling and selling are fundamentally alike. Moreover, SST® is "eclectic" in scope. We build on Neil Rackham's SPIN to assess, not only business problems and their implications, but to learn the personality types of our clients and prospects in the context of Carl Jung's theory. Once we have "sought to understand", ala Stephen Covey, we "seek to be understood" by communicating in the preferred Jungian language of the buyer.
In each of the previous three SST® Newsletters we have referenced Rackham's SPIN. There is yet another important work that SST® draws upon which, heretofore, has gone unmentioned: Strategic Selling. First published in 1985, the 1998 version, The New Strategic Selling by Heiman et al. is just out.
Veterans of SST® may not remember the citation, but will certainly recall the Four Buyers: Economic, User, Technical & Coach. The Economic Buyer controls the purse strings of an organization and gives final approval. Increasingly, Economic Buyers are consulting with User and Technical Buyers before signing off. User Buyers are the people who will actually be using your product or service. They (and there's usually more than one) will assess its impact on how it will help them do their jobs. Technical Buyers cannot say "yes" to a purchase. But, they can say "no" if it doesn't satisfy the technical specifications of which they are custodians. Finally, Heiman's model preaches the virtues of having a "Coach" who wants to see you succeed and often provides an insider's perspective to essential buying dynamics of the client organization.
SST® steps and tools are not just applied to a single buyer. Influenced by Heiman et al. and Strategic Selling, we apply it to all four buying influences. The Four-Buyer model is consistent with SST® because it emphasizes planning an "account centered" strategy for every client rather than using the same "seller centered" tactics on every call. We have fondly referred to the latter as the "show-up and throw-up" school of selling.
If you pick up The New Strategic Selling ($15 from Warner Books), I suggest that you go directly to chapter ten where the major revision appears: "Win-Results". This concept is also complementary to SST. In fact, we have incorporated similar principles into SST® for some time.
Fundamentally, "Win-Results" differentiates between a business Result (greater productivity, improved efficiencies more profit, etc.) and a Win which is personal (positive recognition from superiors, more leisure, less stress, improved status with staff etc.). Heiman et al. (p.198) now assert that, "It's never enough to sell Results alone."
SST® provides the key to unlocking the understanding of what will be a "Win" for different buyers. They are as varied as the different personality type comprising the SST® model.