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Think about how you make buying decisions in your household. You’re likely the only decision maker involved in minor purchases, such as groceries or personal clothing. If you’re buying a bigger-ticket item such as a new car or a flatscreen TV, you may involve other members of your household in the decision. That’s typically not the case in B2B buying.
Buying centers, or the decision-making unit, are composed of all of the different people in the organization who have a stake in the B2B buying decision and have some degree of influence in the purchasing decision. The buying center can have one or more of the following roles, as shown in the figure below.
The initiator is typically the individual who first identifies a purchasing need within the organization. Initiators are the people within the buying center who start (or initiate) the buying process.
EXAMPLE
A machine operator might initiate a request for a particular tool or piece of equipment, or the payroll department may initiate a request for new payroll software. At other times, the need may be identified by senior management or the engineering department.IN CONTEXT
How do B2B marketers connect with initiators? B2B marketers need to constantly provide information to those who may be the problem-identifiers in an organization. For example, marketers could create interactive content so those involved with their products can learn how to identify issues or problems that could require the support of the B2B seller, learn when to notify or begin the search for solutions, and learn where to find testimonials about the B2B products they may need. This content is also an opportunity for upselling to those who don’t have problems but could use benefits like increased efficiency.
Influencers are those within the organization who help define specifications and/or provide information to be used in the evaluation process. Simply put, these are the people in the organization who influence the buying situation and provide information for strategically evaluating alternatives. Influencers may not have a direct role in the purchasing decision, but they wield influence over the purchase. There are two categories of influencers: Business influencers typically focus on how the purchase impacts revenue, whereas technical influencers will generally focus on how the purchase will impact business processes and operations.
IN CONTEXT
How do B2B marketers connect with influencers? B2B marketers need to understand the influencers in an organization and speak their language. For example, if marketers know that a company’s influencer is always looking for the most innovative, cost-effective equipment, marketers need to advertise and sell their equipment using words and images that demonstrate innovative capacity, lower costs, and increases in revenue. Technical specifications should be easy to locate, and each specification should be connected to a revenue or efficiency benefit for the buying company.
Gatekeepers filter information. The gatekeeper is the person the marketer has to negotiate their way through in order to reach the decision makers. Gatekeepers play a strategic role in the buying process because they have the ability to allow only that information favorable to their opinion to flow to the decision makers. For example, an executive assistant might have control of the decision maker’s appointment calendar and might tell the marketer, “There are no openings on the calendar at this time.”
IN CONTEXT
How do B2B marketers connect with gatekeepers? B2B marketers need to build ongoing, strong relationship-building moments with gatekeepers. The goal is to educate the gatekeeper so that they think they have the best information and are able to make the recommendations to their executive team. It is important to invite them to special product introductions, launch parties for product influencers, and unique opportunities to test products and provide feedback before anyone else in their organization does. In other words, B2B marketers need to help the gatekeeper become the ultimate expert and value-adding B2B person in their organization.
Buyers are those who have authority within the organization to select suppliers and negotiate and arrange the purchase terms. Buyers may also assist others within the organization to help shape product specifications, but their primary role is selecting vendors and negotiating the terms of the contract. They are also responsible for issuing purchase orders, following up, and keeping track of deliveries.
IN CONTEXT
How do B2B marketers connect with buyers? B2B marketers need to work closely with gatekeepers to understand how buyers influence the decision about a purchase, which criteria buyers will use, and what content and experiences buyers need to have to make the best recommendation for their company. Then, marketers need to customize the learning experience for buyers so they are confident in the data and have what they need to meet with the decision maker.
Deciders are the critical link for a marketer in getting the order, particularly in major purchases. These are the people within the organization who have the authority to select or approve the final suppliers. B2B buyers may be the deciders for routine purchases (i.e., straight rebuys), but in more complex purchases, decisions are often made higher up in the organization.
IN CONTEXT
How do B2B marketers connect with deciders? As with the buyers, B2B marketers need to work closely with gatekeepers to understand which criteria and information deciders need. Then, the B2B marketer needs to provide the content, experiences, and what’s more, low-stake, no-cost opportunities to try the B2B seller’s products to see how they work for the buyer’s company. This is an investment, but unless a company decides to try new products and gain personal experience, the B2B seller will not get feedback about their products that could turn into a potential partnership.
Users are those people within the organization who will actually use the product or service. These users may or may not be the initiators of the purchase proposal. However, depending on how complex the purchase is, they may help define product specifications.
IN CONTEXT
How do B2B marketers connect with users? B2B marketers need to know their users and design specifications to their needs for information. It helps to engage users in the co-creation of B2B products so that the user will be able to endorse the features, benefits, and outputs and recommend the products without hesitation. If that is not possible, marketers will need to determine if users with which they already have relationships would be able to make connections for them to potential users in other organizations. It’s also a good idea to invite users to special product testing events and regularly communicate with them about products and testimonials of users they can get to know.
It’s important to note that not all of these parties may be involved in every buying decision, depending on the nature of the purchase, and sometimes people in the buying center play more than one role.
IN CONTEXT
For example, consider a medium-sized law firm that needs a new copier. The initiator may be an administrative assistant (who is also a user) who complains to their boss, the managing partner, that the copier is too slow and lacks features like auto-duplexing and the capacity to enlarge and reduce the size of documents. As such, the administrative assistant is also acting as a technical influencer, since they have firsthand knowledge of how a new copier with improved features would impact business processes. Since the managing partner in a law firm oversees the day-to-day operations, that person has the authority to direct the buyer to evaluate new copiers that would meet the specifications described by the administrative assistant and present an analysis of copiers. After evaluating the list provided by the buyer, the managing partner can make the final selection and thus act as the decider.
According to Tony Rutigliano and Brian Brim in their book Strengths Based Selling, “The days of a single economic decision maker are over in most companies and industries. Even some small businesses make decisions in groups.”
EXAMPLE
A study in Germany found that 86% of procurement decisions at large-sized and medium-sized companies are made by groups of two to 20 people. In companies of less than 100 employees, there were typically three people involved, whereas in companies of 1,000 or more, there were as many as 34 people involved. This illustrates the importance of the marketer (or salesperson) understanding the set of roles in the buying center, identifying the role(s) each individual plays, and developing an execution strategy to make the sale.Source: THIS TUTORIAL HAS BEEN ADAPTED FROM OPEN STAX’S PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING COURSE. ACCESS FOR FREE AT https://openstax.org/details/books/principles-marketing. LICENSE: CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 4.0 INTERNATIONAL.
