Tips For Success on the Buying Side of Transactions

There is quite a bit of advice out there to help people who work in sales. But what about those of us on the other end of the transaction? The person being sold to, or doing the buying? Are there any strategies that might help you to become a more comfortable and confident buyer/consumer? Of course, there is, and it may not be as involved as you think. (*Disclaminer- I have nothing to sell with this article, so if you are hoping this turns out to be an elaborate pitch for some product or service, you can just stop reading here. But if you want to hear how to better navigate the buyer side of the sales process, keep reading.)

One of the first things I learned when I worked in sales is the mantra that “Everybody likes to buy, but nobody likes to be sold to”. As paradoxical as it sounds, I found it to be fundamentally true. Executing a purchase or agreeing to a deal represents the ability to exercise a certain power and strength. When we do it in the right circumstances and conditions, it feels good and it accomplishes good. Whether it is for us personally, our family, our company, our employer etc, moving forward with a purchase or agreeing to business with another party is a positive action. Everybody likes that. ?So how can you make sure that you can feel positive when you are in the buyer’s seat? Here are some ideas you may find helpful:

See your strength – When we were small children, my parents taught me and my two sisters a valuable lesson about buying. A few times a year they would take us to Toy R Us (may their brick and mortar locations rest in peace) and give us each one dollar. We were then told that we could spend that dollar to buy one toy of our choosing. As small children we had no idea how much the toys actually cost and our parents would pay the real price of our purchases. But walking around the toy store with that dollar gave us a sense of power and strength. We would be the ones to decide how it was spent and what toy would get to come home with us. I’ve never forgotten that lesson. When you are in a buying position, you have the advantage. You are in a positive position of strength.

Learning to focus on that positive truth can help override a negative mindset of fear and vulnerability that are sometimes felt on the buying side of a transaction. Those negative thoughts and feelings can cause you to hold back from executing when it may be in your best interest to move forward. Yes, every transaction carries with it a measure of risk and exposure, but these factors should not determine how you view your position as buyer. You have the high ground. Remembering that can help you go into transactions on the buying side with the right mindset to get the maximum benefit. You are much better off when you are positive and confident, seeing the position of strength you occupy in the deal. This will then influence your outlook to towards the transaction overall. Our next step explains how.

Look for the positive- Once you see your own strength, the next step is to learn to assess the positives in the transaction. True, doubt and skepticism seem to be the rule of the day and with good reason. We live in an era of mistrust and deception and for every solid business deal or transaction, you have probably seen ten more that were not so solid or were downright bad. And more often than not it is the buying side that ends up worse off in the deal. So why go into the buying side of a deal looking for the positive when we know there are pitfalls out there to be concerned about? Simply because it is much easier to look for truth than it is to search out falsehoods. This is a lesson taught by the Secret Service of the United States. Part of their responsibility is to identify and stop the circulation of counterfeit money. To do so, Secret Service training relies on teaching agents to know the identifying marks of legitimate currency. This means their analysis and investigation is positively positioned. Instead of trying to learn all the methods and tricks of counterfeiters and then try to find their errors, the agents focus on identifying the impossible to replicate features of real currency. If they don’t see them all, they know the money is fake. They have found this process to be much faster and much more accurate. On the buying side of transactions for yourself or your company, making a positively positioned analysis will help you too. Instead of going into deals trying to find where all the hidden pitfalls and traps are, you are much better off going into the deal looking for the markers of what the deal should contain. If you see them all, it is potentially a good opportunity. If you don’t see them, you know in short order that it is not the deal for you. But how do you know what you should be looking for? That’s where the next step comes in.

Do your homework- In my line of work I present opportunities to business owners and executives that they sometimes express they feel are too good to be true (they aren’t, that’s just a typical reaction when someone is presented with something they didn’t know about and haven’t seen before). At times they will ask me:

·?????“What am I missing here?”

·?????“What is it you are not telling me”

These questions are revealing and not in a good way from my perspective. I know at that point the deal is in peril because the person on the buy-in side is asking me to do their due diligence for them on the very product I am presenting to them. In that scenario the chances of them moving forward are slim, not because the deal isn’t a good one, but because they aren’t willing to do their own homework to know what they should be looking for. As a result, they may miss out on easily attainable cost savings they could have put in place for their company or organization. In some cases these missed savings go into the millions. I much prefer it when I’m asked:

·?????“What are some of the objections or criticisms raised about this product?”

·?????“What are some of the challenges encountered with implementing this plan?”

Asking those types of questions tell me the buying side is going to do their homework and that’s a good sign. Every good product, service or deal will have the identifying markers of having to withstand challenges and criticisms. If the selling side is telling you that what they are offering has no challenges or opponents, something is missing.

While the sales side can be of assistance, it is ultimately your responsibility on the buy-in side to look at the offering objectively and figure out what elements should be in place to tell you that the deal is a good one. So back to that basic lesson of grade school, do your own homework!

With these three steps, the way you listen to sales presentations, the way you enter negotiations and how you decide to move forward on products and services can hopefully be changed for the better. There is a lot more that can be said on the topic and I would love to find out your thoughts. Do you agree with these points? Is there another step you find especially helpful on the buying side of transactions? Please comment and let me know.

This article was written using only old-school, non-artificial "intelligence" :-)

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