Selling to Procurement: Knowing THIS about Procurement will boost your sales

If you are like most B2B sales people, you’ll have bumped up against Procurement a number of times. I’m guessing that’s often been a frustrating experience. And I know many sales people, for that reason, are tempted to avoid procurement. My advice to you, however, is to take even more of an interest in the Procurement departments of your prospects. So, why should you get to know the Procurement departments of your prospects? That’s the question I’ll be answering in this article based on more than two decades of working in Procurement and Sales.

There are 3 key reasons why it’s vital that you get to know as much about Procurement as you can.

You can’t avoid Procurement anymore

The first reason is that it’s become virtually impossible to avoid Procurement these days. So, why is that?

Over the past couple of decades, Procurement has slowly evolved from being a transactional Old School function, into becoming a much more Modern strategic and value adding function. That’s a general trend and not all Procurement departments have evolved to the same extent.

But because of that general trend, Procurement now tends to be a much more entrenched and equal member of the Decision Making Unit.

COVID has strengthened Procurements position further

Then COVID happened and an economic downturn happened as a result. Many companies are feeling the pinch because of it, and Venture Capital funding suddenly dried up.

In fact, during the first three months of 2022, global Venture Capital funding dropped 19% compared to previous quarter, according to data from CB Insights. To put that into perspective, that’s the largest decline in 10 years! Now, you may wonder what that has to do with Procurement.

Venture Capitalists’ main objective is to grow revenue of the companies they invest in. That drives up valuations and that’s how Venture Capitalists make their money. So, for that reason, they favour growth over profit.

Now that less Venture Capital funding is available, companies are shifting their focus back on generating more profit, rather than just growing revenue. And, as we all know, Procurement helps improve profit margins by controlling and removing costs.

So, you can’t avoid Procurement anymore because the function has been given more and more power over time and the pandemic has just accelerated that trend even further.

Procurement can destroy your sales KPIs… or help you make a sale

The second reason why it’s vital you get to know as much about Procurement as you can, is that the function has the power to negatively impact your sales KPIs. I’m talking about KPIs such as your “Close Rate Percentage”, “Average Profit Margin” and “Sales Cycle Length”. So, by not being Procurement savvy, you risk getting fewer less profitable deals that take longer to close.

The third reason why becoming Procurement savvy makes sense is that in some situations, Procurement could actually help you make a sale. If what you sell aligns with Procurement’s core agenda of optimising and removing costs, they could become your champion and advocate.

Invest 30 minutes of your time to become Procurement savvy

If dealing more effectively with Procurement is important to you, then you could really benefit from using the proven process that I share during my free 30 min. online events called, “Sell more in less time by taking control of your relationships with Procurement”. But grab your seat quickly! After 10 January 2023, the webinar will no longer be available.

Just click on the button below to register. The timer indicates when the next available session starts.