The RevOps Show

Episode 96: The Procurement Trap - How Intent Signals Are Costing You Sales

Written by Hannah Rose | Sep 18, 2024 2:00:00 PM

Sellers often get stuck in a commoditization trap by focusing too much on differentiation and add-ons rather than clearly articulating the problem they solve. In this episode, Doug and Jess explain the distinctions between programs and procurement, sharing tips for bringing sellers back to properly defining the problem they’re solving

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Show Notes:

Pre-Show Banter: 

  • Jess is back from vacation!
  • It’s been a while since Doug and Jess recorded an episode – Doug doesn’t recall the name of the show! 
  • Doug believes we should make a book called If You Feed a RevOps Admin a Cookie. (If you like the idea, tell us on LinkedIn)
  • Doug talks through all the awards and the IndieReader rating The Revenue Acceleration Framework has received.

We’re talking about procurement today. Doug believes procurement people are short-tripped by the revenue generation world. 

Whether procurement is an official role or part of the buying process or not, at the end of the day anytime a company buys something, that’s a procurement process. What Doug thinks is happening in the post-intent world is an obsession with intent-based signals are throwing seller organizations into a procurement trap. A commoditization trap if you will. 

From a RevOps standpoint and a revenue generation standpoint, understanding procurement is a piece of the process, but it’s a distinctly different part of the process. There’s a difference in understanding between the program and procurement. 

More often than not we’re throwing ourselves into talking about program in the context of procurement. This is costing companies a lot of money and frustration. 

There’s a difference and distinction between small sales, large sales, low consideration and high consideration. When we talk about high consideration there are three distinct stages a sales goes through and two distinct parts of a value proposition.

Two parts of value proposition: 

  • Specs
  • Price

A procurement process or a post-intent process needs to be balanced by a pre-intent process or the category that defines you.

To be post-intent, you have to have an idea of the solution. The place where you have the greatest leverage and influence is problem identification. The place where you’re going to differentiate yourself is how you view the problem. 

How do you shift your approach to where you are in pre-intent?

You have to look at your approach holistically.

  • What’s the problem you solve? 
  • What’s the best way to solve the problem? 
  • Why are you the best choice to solve the problem? 

If you were to ask your organization, what’s the problem you solve? What percentage of them would be able to give an answer? Out of the people who could give an answer, how much would those answers differentiate? 

A company did this with their sales organization and had people anonymously submit their responses. In doing this, there were 80+ variations of the answer.

We’re so deep in our solution that we never really think about the problem.

Doug’s not saying to not focus on post-intent, especially if you’re a solution that fits an existing demand category. Focus on what you’re doing to influence demand earlier to change the perception and drive value.

Difference Between Program and Procurement

Program is about the use case – What’s the problem? What’s the cause of the problem? What’s the cost of the problem? What’s the impact of solving it? 

Procurement is about what someone is willing to do for that. 

It’s price and specs.

Once the buyer is in a high intent phase, you’re always working against the “what’s it cost” framework. That’s where balance needs to happen.

Jess’s Takeaways:

  • Answers do not make us valuable; questions do.
  • Teach people how to buy.
  • The problem named is the problem solved.
  • The post-intent process needs to be balanced with the pre-intent process. We need to work to define the problem before talking about what it costs.

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