Product
November 13, 2024

Manage the Buying Committee with These Critical Features

Manage the Buying Committee with These Critical Features

Product
April 17, 2024

Getting one or two leads on a call might be easy, but in today’s sales market, it doesn't do much to get you in the door with a company completely. According to Forbes, the average buying committee has ballooned to 10-14+ people, as opposed to the previously expected 6.

Even more, recent data from Clari suggests that for deals valued between $50,000 and $250,000, sellers need to establish not only a warm connection but a relationship with an average of 10 people between the companies to reach a close. This means understanding everyone's unique needs, priorities, and timelines and providing value for every member of the buying committee.

When you consider the time it would take, it doesn’t seem doable. When the group is so large, sellers might run into issues with identifying a clear authority, balancing conflicting goals, and the logistics of keeping so many people looped in. In addition to those issues, there’s always a risk of having a shadow decision-maker swooping in and derailing the deal at the last minute.

Is a buying committee this high maintenance too much for a sales team to reasonably handle?

With Pod, it doesn’t have to be.

Tooling that's on your side

Pod is a pipeline intelligence tool made with sellers in mind. It integrates with your go-to CRM and booking tools and offers prioritization features, supercharged organization, and even an AI coach. But in terms of how Pod helps with your buying committee specifically, we’re highlighting three key features.

Here’s how each of them works.

Contact Mapping

What is it?

Contact Mapping will be critical for monitoring your engagement with each member of the buying committee. It uses data from emails, call recordings, meeting transcripts, and meeting notes to synthesize a prospect’s concerns, questions, and excitement. Then, you can better understand the health of the relationship with each stakeholder.

When to use it:

The best times to utilize Contact Mapping are at the beginning of the deal when you want to engage positively with stakeholders, and when the relationship needs attention so you can address concerns before they snowball. Additionally, you could use contact mapping during your follow-up activities to tailor your touch points and improve the overall deal health.

How does it help with the buying committee?

By providing insights into engagement trends and overall sentiment, the Contact Mapping feature empowers sellers to tailor their approach to each stakeholder, therefore improving their chances of bringing the deal across the finish line. Keeping track of each stakeholder’s role, goals, priorities, and engagement has never been easier. Here are some quick facts on how it works:

Sentiment analysis & trends

  • Evaluates the tone of interactions with each stakeholder and signify as positive, negative, or neutral.
  • Tracks sentiment over time, showing whether things are worsening, improving, or holding steady.
  • Signifies to the seller when they need to step in to prevent the deal from veering off course.

Sentiment synthesis

  • Highlights areas of concern, areas of excitement, and issues that may need addressing.
  • Positive engagement about certain features, for example, will be flagged as an area to focus on in future engagements.
  • Repeated concerns will also be flagged so the seller can step in and objection-handle as needed.

Action recommendations

  • Pod will recommend ways to take action based on the analysis and trends, like booking a follow-up call to address concerns or involving another stakeholder to add reassurance.

As we mentioned in that study from Clari, it’s not just about knowing who everyone on the buying committee is; it’s all about building and understanding your relationship with each individual stakeholder. For that, Contact Mapping is invaluable.

Framework Analysis

What is it?

Framework Analysis takes your qualification frameworks to the next level by analyzing meeting notes, emails, and even calls to flag critical topics in your team’s implemented framework. It highlights which topics are covered and what you still need to dig deeper into.

When to use it:

Framework Analysis is helpful in a few key areas, the first being before your sales calls when you’re reviewing topics of your framework that haven’t been covered. During deal review, Framework Analysis will also help you track your deal progression and where the gaps are. Finally, use it when you're preparing client follow-ups so you know what needs to be covered and where your opportunities are.

How does it help with the buying committee?

Pod generates a summary for each topic within the framework, giving reps clear, actionable steps for moving their deal down the pipeline. Missing information on a given topic may be better addressed by another stakeholder, giving reps a reason to reach out and continue fostering relationships with different members of the buying committee. Here’s a deeper dive into how it works:

Frameworks available

  • MEDDIC - Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, Champion.
  • SPIN - Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff.
  • BANT - Budget, Authority, Need, Timing.
  • Challenger Sales.

Soon, Pod will be able to support custom frameworks.

Discussed topics

  • Flags which topics from your framework have been covered in your client interactions.
  • The table of contents and the framework report highlight topics to be addressed for easy visibility.

Summary of topics

  • Provides a digestible summary of each topic based on interactions.
  • Highlights praises and objections raised to help the rep stay laser-focused on the next steps.

AEs and BDRs often have qualification criteria requirements baked into their compensation. Framework Analysis also clarifies for reps and managers whether and how those targets have been reached.

Stakeholder Recommendations

What is it?

Stakeholder Recommendations suggests critical members of the buying committee that should be involved in the deal to help it convert quicker. By harnessing machine learning and historical data, the recommendations are given based on title, seniority, and department.

When to use it:

During the deal progression phases, Stakeholder Recommendations suggest new stakeholders who may be helpful in speeding things along. Also, if your deal stalls, it will recommend a new stakeholder who played a critical role in similar deals historically and could get things back on track.

How does it help with the buying committee?

Stakeholder Recommendations unleashes a strategic advantage for sellers by uncovering the buying committee earlier in the process. Sales research is lengthy and tedious, and leveraging data like historical deal data, deal fields, activity data from previous deals, and stakeholder profile data cuts the time down so reps can get back to what matters. Here’s the rundown on how it works:

Similar Deals

  • Identifies similar deals by clustering and recognizing patterns based on multiple fields.
  • Compares current deals with previous ones with similar characteristics.
  • Provides insights on which contacts were impactful based on that historical data.

Stakeholder recommendations

  • Recommends stakeholders based on profiles in historical deals, including seniority and title.
  • Makes suggestions intended to engage influencers or decision-makers who have a proven track record of positively impacting past deals.

Department recommendations

  • Suggests departments that should be included in the conversation based on past deals.

For some businesses, the buying committee isn’t set in stone and flexes depending on the product they’re pursuing. Stakeholder Recommendations takes the guesswork out of who is who and who is needed to push the deal forward.

The Bottom Line

Don't let your deals stall in the pipeline because buying committee management is intimidating or a waste of time. With Pod, you can work more effectively, give better visibility to your managers, build a streamlined strategy, and ultimately convert.

Try it out, and thank us later. Book your demo today.

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