In Part 2 we recommended you should ask one simple question: What business results can we help them achieve? The next challenge for you is to understand who in your customer’s organisation you need to influence. In business today decisions are rarely made by just one person. Several people influence the decision. Many books recommend identifying the decision maker and going directly to them. Quite simply this is a major mistake.

There are five different buying styles:

• Decision maker
• Influencer
• Recommender
• Gatekeeper
• End user

Even if you can persuade the decision maker to say yes to your proposals, the other four styles can ruin your proposal and show the decision maker how the decision maker made a bad choice to choose you and your company. Each of the buying styles has different needs. To be successful, you must meet each of their needs.

Our book, Persuading for Results includes a brief insight which discusses the styles and shows how to apply the ideas to an engineering organization and a hospital. Click on the cloud icon on the right hand side of our web page to download a free copy of the insight.

To influence your best customers, you must identify who matters and understand how to influence their buying style.