Page 99 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

90 Writing Winning Business Proposals

own area of responsibility or organization. If I am a user buyer, you’d better not
ignore me if you want a long-term relationship. If, by chance, you sell an initial
project that circumvents me, I may sabotage subsequent projects or even hinder
acceptance and implementation during the initial one. That is the case because
your project will have a direct impact on my job performance and on those I
manage. If I’m a user buyer, you’d better convince me that the winds of change
are pleasant or, if they’re not, that the hurricane will at least clear out a lot of
unwanted dust and debris, leaving me as one of the survivors.
I also might be a technical buyer (Figure 6.3), who primarily judges the mea-
surable and quantifiable aspects of your proposal. If so, I’m a gatekeeper, making
recommendations to the other groups of buyers. As a technical buyer, I don’t usu-
ally have the authority to accept your proposal, but I can play a decisive role in
eliminating you from further consideration.
The fourth buying role is the coach (Figure 6.4), an individual (or individuals)
whom you hope to find and develop to help you make the sale. It’s highly desir-
able to have a coach or coaches on the buying team. It’s ideal, of course, if one of
your coaches is the economic buyer.
Why do you need a coach? Well, sometimes you don’t. But often you do, prob-
ably more often than you realize. You see, sometimes I don’t fully trust you. I
don’t know you well enough for you to have earned my trust. In fact, if you’re a
consultant, as I stated earlier, I often would prefer not having you or other con-
sultants around, asking me a lot of time-consuming questions and prying into
my affairs. You are an outsider, and I would prefer that you stay that way. I wish
that I didn’t need you and that I could resolve my own organization’s issues. But

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