Selling software to corporate clients typically includes the challenge of convincing a business decision maker (BDM) to say “yes” to an investment whose return is difficult to define. Making the all-important business case to the BDM requires software marketers to think outside of their IT comfort zones and get past technological buzzwords and the IT-centric sale. BDMs think differently from IT decision makers (ITDMs) about major software purchases. To reach them, we have to articulate a strong business value proposition for the technology purchase. In this paper, Hugh Taylor, a former IW Comms professional who now creates BDM-facing content for Microsoft, explores some proven techniques for persuading BDMs to invest in a long-term relationship with an IT vendor

1. Getting to Yes With the
Business Decision Maker
Hugh Taylor

2. Goals of Today’s Session
• Improving our ability to engage with business
decision makers in the marketing process.
• Gaining a better understanding of the BDM
persona and what drives them.
• Building up our BDM marketing “muscles” and
learning to think in terms of business value
messaging for the technology sale.
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3. A Little About Us
• Hugh Taylor Marketing Communications
• Content Creation for Technology Marketers
• Clients include:
– Microsoft
– Sybase
– FirstData
– Quark
• Former Microsoft Communications
Professional (IW Comms)
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4. The Buying Committee
• The buyer side of an enterprise software sale invariably
consists of a committee of stakeholders who each must
approve the vendor and proposed solution.
• This group might include multiple buyer personas:
– Developers
– IT professionals
– IT managers
– Security experts
– Architects
– (LOB) managers, also known as business decision makers,
or BDMs
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5. Buyer Personas
• The software solution must meet the needs of each
member of the group in order to be selected.
• Each persona has its own needs for the solution, but
the BDM’s point of view on software is markedly
different from the others.
– While developers, architects and security experts have
divergent requirements for software, they tend to
evaluate solutions from a technological viewpoint.
– BDMs typically do not.
– BDMs look at software from a business perspective.
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6. Success
• The successful enterprise software vendor is able to persuade
BDMs of the business value of its solution.
• The process of persuasion must last throughout the entire
lifecycle of the transaction, from demand generation through
RFP and close.
• We must understand the BDM and the world in which he or
she operates.
• With a grasp of the BDM mindset, we initiate a dialogue that
communicates a strong business value proposition for the
solution and creates a foundation for a long-term, trust-based
relationship.
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7. Our Goal
• A BDM is a potential influencer or
champion of an enterprise software
solution.
• In some cases, the BDM is the ultimate
decision maker.
• We want a “Yes” from the BDM. To
make the sale, we need the crucial
business level approval that will put our
solution over the top. Yet, chances are,
we want more than a simple “thumbs
up”.
• Our goal with the BDM should be to
develop a long-term relationship based
on trust, business advantage, and
financial value.
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8. The BDM Buyer Persona
• Gaining the trust of a BDM and persuading him or her of the
business value of our solution is not a push-button process.
• As a start, we have to understand the BDM’s persona and
perspective on IT.
• A BDM is running a business.
– Responsible for increasing income and reducing costs in order to
achieve continuous earnings growth. (Hiring and firing, product
development, overseeing sales and managing operations…)
– At the same time, the BDM bears ultimate responsibility for managing
risk on a global basis. It’s a broad, stressful role.
– The good news is that IT has a long, successful history of helping BDMs
further their business objectives.
– The bad news is that we can easily fall into communication traps that
undermine our efforts to win the trust of the BDM and showcase our
solution as being essential in business terms.
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9. A Hypothetical Solution Sale
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10. Three Traps
• Being excessively technical : Deep discussions of technology and product
features can be helpful when communicating with ITDMs. However, the
BDM typically does not have the same depth of appreciation for
technology.
• Using scare tactics: Unfortunately, many software vendors rely on a fright-
inducing story to jump start the business relationship.
• Ignoring IT’s track record :A BDM may hear a pitch for new software as,
“Here is technology that will help you achieve your goals in a particular
aspect of business operations.” In a lot of cases, though, that type of
message is going to hit some pretty skeptical ears.
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11. Connecting with the BDM
• How do we build a
relationship with the BDM
without falling into these
common traps?
• We have to engage the
BDM in a dialogue that
reinforces our
understanding of the
business situation and
affirms the business value
of our solution.
• The right kind of dialogue
that will move the
relationship forward
involves the “Chain of
Yeses.”
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12. Business-Oriented Story Telling
• The secret to connecting with the BDM is to tell a story
that will draw the BDM into a productive dialogue.
• A good story hooks the BDM and moves him or her
down the path from consideration to preference, and
ultimately to selection of our solution.
• The story is about strategy and financial gain,
leadership and team empowerment. It succeeds by
engaging the BDM in a thought process that looks at
the business challenge from his or her perspective.
• And, it’s told in the BDM language.
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13. The Story
• This BDM-facing story establishes a realistic business scenario.
– There is a problem, but there is more than one possible solution.
– The scenario-based approach allows the vendor and the BDM to consider how
a particular solution might lead to the best business outcomes.
– The BDM facing story should include both a financial return on investment as
well as intangible drivers of business advantage.
• BDMs tend to think in terms of competitive dynamics. They want to know
how a proposed investment will further the competitive positioning of the
business.
– Operational advantage – Will the proposed solution make the BDM’s business
more efficient or effective in operational terms?
– Strategic advantage – Can a software solution confer a strategic advantage on
the BDM’s business?
– Knowledge Advantage - Will the solution help information workers capture,
preserve, and share valuable organizational knowledge?
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14. The Solution
The distributor portal functions as an intermediary between sales, operations, and
the distributor. The portal will replace the current inefficient set-up and provide
distributors with a single online location to access information about price quotes
and seasonal promotions.
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15. Return on Investment (ROI)
• ROI is a subjective concept in the enterprise
software context:
– Often gets misused or loosely applied in discussions
where specificity is required.
– BDMs have a distinct sense of what ROI is all about,
and it is a point of view that is usually quite different
from that of ITDMs.
• In a simple sense, ROI is always about the same
thing:
– Money gets invested.
– Then, there is a savings or increase in income that
results in a positive return from the investment.
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16. ROI for a BDM vs. ITDM
• In most ITDM-facing discussions, the ROI is approached as
an IT-centric issue.
– Reductions in hardware costs or
– Reductions in maintenance fees, and so forth, resulting in a
return on the IT investment.
• This is a completely valid approach to ROI, but one that is
not particularly motivating to the BDM.
• The one absolute truth that we all need to grasp before
discussing ROI with a BDM is that the BDM does not have
to make an investment in IT.
• Proving ROI to a BDM must therefore answer a basic,
existential question about the solution. Should the solution
even be under consideration?
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17. Key ROI Questions
• If the BDM-facing communication is to cross this critical
bridge, you must be prepared to answer the following
questions:
– Will this solution help me save money, make more
money, or both?
– What will this solution cost me now?
– What will this solution cost me later?
– Will there be opportunity costs to implementing this
solution?
– Will there be unexpected future costs?
– Will this solution inhibit me from other potential actions
I might want to take down the road?
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18. Getting Specific with ROI
Time Required for Process Step
(Person/Hours)
Process Step As Is With Portal
Receive and process RFQ 0.10 0.05
Sales supervision of RFQ 0.20 0.10
Operations communicating RFQ
response
0.20 0.10
Preparing proposal draft 0.50 0.50
Discuss proposal 0.75 0.50
Finalize and submit proposal 0.75 0.25
Receive and process order 0.10 0.05
Oversee order in manufacturing
queue
0.50 0.20
Facilitate delivery 0.20 0.10
Invoicing 0.10 0.05
Total 3.40 1.90
Reduction in time 1.50 44%
Cost per worker/hour $ 85
Savings per order $ 128
Orders per year 18,000
Total annual savings $ 2,295,000
Wherever possible, we should
articulate specific, hard dollar
factors that will affect the
solution in the business context
over the short and long term.
The table is an example of an
ROI calculator spreadsheet that
breaks the order processing
workflow into discrete tasks
and compares how much
information worker time they
would require with and
without the distributor portal.
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19. How Do We Know ROI facts?
• How do we know how much a BDM’s company
spends on its order processing?
– We don’t, of course, but the modeling process shows
the BDM that we are thinking about ROI the way he or
she is.
– You can present savings as potentialities, e.g. If the
portal could reduce order-processing labor by 10%, it
could realize a savings of $520,000, and so forth.
– Best practice: Provide a digital Excel version of the ROI
calculator to facilitate a realistic ROI discussion with
the actual BDM in the field.
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20. Conclusion
• Getting to “Yes” with a BDM is an essential step in
commencing an enduringly profitable, trust-based
relationship.
• To initiate the dialogue that will allow the relationship to take
root involves understanding what is on the BDM’s mind and
approaching the software sale from the BDM’s perspective.
– Use a compelling business scenario to discuss the business value of the
proposed solution.
– Tell a story.
– Show business advantage.
– Show tangible ROI.
• Ultimately, though, no single piece of marketing material can
do all the hard work of fostering a long-term relationship with
the BDM.
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21. Thank You!
hugh@hughtaylor.com
(310) 383-7041
www.hughtaylor.com