The sales process · Customer research
Nothing changed about your offer, and the enquiries stopped in June anyway.
Customer behaviour is the study of what actually moves a buyer to act, split into what is going on inside their company and what is going on around it. The internal half covers budget cycles, reporting lines and old mistakes. The external half covers seasons, rules and rivals.
In one paragraph
Customer behaviour is the study of what actually moves a buyer to act, split into what is going on inside their company and what is going on around it. The internal half covers budget cycles, reporting lines and old mistakes. The external half covers seasons, rules and rivals.
March is not a normal month. A factory that has ignored your quotation for six weeks will sign it before the thirty-first, because the budget dies with the financial year. Nothing about your pitch improved.
Internal factors sit inside the buyer's own walls: when money is released, who they answer to, what the last supplier did to them. A purchase manager who was once left with a machine nobody would service will ask about your service engineer before asking your price.
External factors sit outside everybody. The monsoon that stops site work for eight weeks. A rule change that sends every trader in Chickpet to their accountant. A competitor opening two roads away. You cannot argue with these. You can plan a year around them.
Buyer persona named the person. This explains what moves them, and the buyer journey after it puts those movements into a sequence you can count.
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.
“A twelve-box calendar is the cheapest research you will ever do”
Draw twelve boxes and fill in what happens to your buyer in each month: audit season, admission season, the Diwali shutdown, the monsoon, the March rush to spend. Then put your own campaign spend on the same sheet and look at the mismatch.
“Ask what went wrong last time”
Almost every buyer has a scar from a previous supplier, and it decides what they check first. One question in the first meeting gets it: what did the last vendor do that you are watching out for now.
“A rule change is a selling season”
A fire safety notice, a pollution board deadline, an e-invoicing threshold coming down a slab. None of it is your doing and all of it makes a buyer who was comfortable last month suddenly urgent. Watch the notices your customers read, not the ones you read.
“Separate what you can influence from what you can only time”
You can change a buyer's view of your service record. You cannot move the financial year. Putting both on one list and treating them the same is how a business ends up running a discount in the deadest week of its own season.
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.
The two-column sheet
Internal factors on the left, external on the right. Against each one, write who told you about it and what it changes in the sale. A factor with nobody's name against it is a guess and should be marked as one.
Result: Finished when every line names a customer, a staff member or a document as its source.
The buying calendar
Twelve rows, one per month, showing what your buyer is dealing with and what you will be doing that month. Keep it on one page and print it, because the point is that somebody looks at it in February.
Result: Finished when the quiet months on the calendar match the quiet months in your own sales records.
The watch list
Three or four external events worth tracking by hand: a tender cycle, a licence renewal window, a deadline your buyers' accountants care about. Put a date and an owner against each.
Result: Finished when somebody is named against every item and has a reminder set for it.
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.
How is this different from market research?
How do we find the internal factors if the buyer will not tell us?
Our sales are steady all year. Does this still apply?
Who in the office should keep this sheet up to date?
How long does it take, and how often does it need redoing?
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.