The sales process · Customer research
The person who pays your invoice is rarely the person who chose you.
Your primary customer is whoever pays the invoice. Secondary customers are everybody else who can stop the sale: the architect who writes the specification, the family at the kitchen table, the consultant, the purchase department. Naming them separately stops you selling to one person in a room of four.
Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.
In one paragraph
Your primary customer is whoever pays the invoice. Secondary customers are everybody else who can stop the sale: the architect who writes the specification, the family at the kitchen table, the consultant, the purchase department. Naming them separately stops you selling to one person in a room of four.
A tile dealer's invoice is paid by the builder in Whitefield. The tile was chosen by the architect, who has never paid that dealer a rupee and never will. Sell only to the builder and you will spend your life arguing about rate.
Every sale has one payer and usually two or three other people holding a veto. A hospital buys a scanner on the word of a consultant who refers patients elsewhere when it is wrong. A home renovation is signed by one member of a family and cancelled by another over dinner.
So write two lists. The payer, and everyone who can say no. Against each name on the second list, write what that person is protecting and what you would have to give them before they will back you.
This follows buyer context and sits immediately before the value proposition. That sentence has to survive being repeated secondhand by somebody who does not work for you and is not being paid to get it right.
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
Stop treating your best customer and your least active one exactly the same.
The work
What this step is actually like.
“The specifier is a customer who never pays”
Architects, consulting engineers, chartered accountants recommending software, doctors referring to a laboratory. They carry the decision and none of them appears in your sales ledger, so most businesses have no record of them at all.
“A secondary customer needs different material, not a softer version of the same pitch”
The consultant wants a drawing, a test certificate and a specification clause they can paste. The purchase officer wants a price, a delivery date and three references. Send either one the other's document and you have wasted the only attention you were given.
“Do not treat an influencer as a buyer”
An architect asked for an order stops returning calls. Give them the specification, the sample and the site support, then let the builder who pays you be the one asked for a decision. Confusing the two roles loses both.
“Some secondary customers are internal”
The storekeeper who rejects material that arrives without a test report. The accounts clerk who will not clear a bill that does not match the purchase order. They cannot say yes to you and they can certainly say no.
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 lists
One page. Payer at the top, everybody with a veto underneath, and against each of them two things: what they are judged on, and what would make them comfortable recommending you.
Result: Finished when your last three lost orders each have a name on the second list that you had never spoken to.
A map of one live deal
Take a real order you are chasing now and draw the people on it: who asked for the quotation, who signs, who specified, who has used you before. Add arrows for who listens to whom. It will be ugly and it will be correct.
Result: Finished when you can point at the one person on the sheet whose opinion decides the order.
One piece of material per secondary role
A specification sheet for the consultant, a one-page price and delivery note for purchase, a photograph set for the family deciding at home. Three simple documents, each written for somebody who is not paying you.
Result: Finished when each document has been sent to a real person in that role and has come back with a question rather than silence.
A line in the enquiry record for the referrer
A field naming who sent this customer to you, filled in at the first conversation. Without it, the people producing your best work stay invisible in your own records.
Result: Finished when you can list, from your records alone, the five people outside your business who sent you the most work last year.
Where this fits
Three pieces of sales work, in this order.
This work sits inside sales process design, at stage 0, foundation. The audit comes before it, and sales management keeps it running.
Step 1
Sales audit
Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.
Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.
Step 2 · you are here
Sales process design
One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.
Start here if every salesperson sells differently.
Step 3
Sales management
A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.
Start here if the team has targets and no routine.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
How is this different from customer segmentation?
We sell to walk-in consumers. Do we have secondary customers?
Should we pay a commission to a specifier?
Who inside our company should own this list?
How long does it take to build?
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.
Your next practical step
Tell us what you are trying to grow, and we will read it before we call.
Eight short steps, mostly taps. Skip anything you would rather answer on the call.