The sales process · Customer research
Same trade, same size, same quotation, and one of them was never buying.
Buyer context is the situation a person is in at the moment they contact you. What has just happened, how much time they have, who is watching, and whether anybody has released the money yet. It explains why two companies that match your profile exactly behave nothing alike.
In one paragraph
Buyer context is the situation a person is in at the moment they contact you. What has just happened, how much time they have, who is watching, and whether anybody has released the money yet. It explains why two companies that match your profile exactly behave nothing alike.
Two units in Doddaballapur, the same size, the same machines, both ask for a quotation in the same week. One signs in nine days. The other stops replying, and months later you learn they needed three quotations for a bank loan file.
Nothing in the profile or the persona told you that, because neither is about today. One buyer had a broken machine and a delivery date. The other had a form to fill in.
Be honest about this one. It is a refinement, and a four-person firm that has not yet written down who its customer is should skip it and come back in a year. If you are already turning away more enquiries than you can serve, it becomes the cheapest way to choose between them.
The buyer journey put the stages in order, and this explains the behaviour inside a stage. Primary and secondary customers comes next. That step deals with the fact that the person talking to you is frequently not the one deciding.
Where this sits
Stage 2 of 10, customer research. Who buys, why they buy, and what they are comparing you against while they decide.
- The stage before
- Strategic plan
- The stage after
- Prospecting
If you want this done for you
Ask customers directly instead of assuming you already know what they need.
The work
What this step is actually like.
“Three questions get most of it”
What made you start looking this month. What happens at your end if nothing is decided for ninety days. Who else has to agree before an order is placed. Asked plainly in the first call, they take two minutes and they change how you spend the next three weeks.
“Context goes stale, profiles do not”
A buyer who was urgent in April is a different buyer in July, and the note in your CRM is now misleading rather than merely old. Anything recorded here needs a date on it and a habit of asking again.
“The quote collector is a real situation, not a bad lead”
Loan files, tender comparisons, insurance claims and board papers all need a third quotation from somebody. Serve it fast, price it properly, and do not put a salesperson on it for six weeks. Some of those firms come back when the project is real.
“Write it into the enquiry record, not a research report”
This is three extra fields on the form your team already fills in. The moment it becomes a separate document, it stops being updated, and a context note that is not updated is worse than none.
What we do
What you end up with.
The artefacts this step produces, what each one is for, and how you know it is finished.
Three fields on the enquiry record
Why now, what happens if nothing happens, and who else decides. Put them where the enquiry is first written down, whether that is a CRM, a register at the front desk or a shared sheet.
Result: Finished when you can open five enquiries at random from last week and find all three fields answered.
Your own list of situations
Four or five labels drawn from your real enquiries: broken and urgent, money already sanctioned, comparing for a file, designing something for next year, unhappy with a current supplier. Yours will differ from anybody else's, which is the sign it is right.
Result: Finished when every enquiry from the last month falls into one label, with no more than a couple left over.
A rule for each situation
One line saying what happens next for each label: who calls, how fast, what gets sent, and when the file is closed if nothing moves. A sanctioned budget gets a visit. A file-filler gets a clean quotation by email and a diary note for six months.
Result: Finished when a new person can read the label on an enquiry and know their next action without asking anyone.
Why us
Why owners pick GullySales over an agency.
Marketing and sales, as one job
Most agencies stop at the enquiry. We also fix what happens after it: the reply, the follow-up, the quote and the CRM.
The person on the first call does the work
No account managers in between. You are never handed to someone you have not met.
A baseline before anything starts
Your numbers are written down on day one, so every monthly report compares against something honest.
The fee in writing, split three ways
Our time, your media spend and production on separate lines. You always see what goes to us.
No lock-in, no guarantees we cannot keep
Three to six months at a time. We never promise a ranking or a lead count, because nobody controls those.
One office, and we say so
Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru. We work across India by call and WhatsApp and travel when a session needs to be in person.
#257, 3rd floor, Sri Nanjundeshwara Complex, Nagarbhavi 8th Block, Outer Ring Road. How we work.
The offer
Start with a free audit of how you sell.
It is useful on its own, whether or not you hire us.
What you receive
- A 90-minute call with the person who will do the work
- A written, scored report on the six places orders leak, within a few working days
- Every fix ranked by what it returns and what it costs
- The one thing to do first, and why
- An honest line on whether you need outside help at all
- If you do, the scope and the fee in writing
No invoice. No obligation. No sales script.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
Is this not just lead qualification under a different name?
How is this different from the buying trigger in a persona?
Should a small business bother with this?
Who has to agree it?
How long does it take to put in place?
How much does it cost?
How long is the contract?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
What if we are not happy with the work?
Where to go next
The work that carries this step further.
The rest of customer research
Or read the whole sales process in order.