You sell to three people.
The buyer decides. The funder pays. The client receives the service.
It’s not always three literal people. Sometimes one person is all three.
A founder hiring a consultant with their own money is the buyer, funder, and client. That one is straightforward.
But the larger the organization you sell to, those hats sit on different heads. And the more people involved means the more the buying dynamics change. For example…
A restaurant owner hires a financial advisory firm to provide retirement planning support for its restaurant staff. That owner is the buyer and the funder. But the client(s) are the managers and employee who serve front and back of house.
More complex still, think about executive coaching inside a large organization.
The person receiving the coaching might be a Director of Engineering Ops. Their boss, the VP of Engineering is to one who approves the coach and service option. While it’s the Chief Financial Officer that releases the budget.
Three players with different motives all impacting your selling process.
What the players care about matters.
The client tends to care about outcomes (avoidance of pain or pleasure of gain).
Will this help me do better work? Will this make life easier? Will this help me get that promotion?
The buyer tends to care about decision quality.
Can I defend this choice? Does it make sense logically? Will this make me look smart…or stupid?
The funder tends to care about pressure on resources.
Is there room for this in the budget? What shifts if we approve it? Why does it cost so much?
This is why excellent service providers with obvious value can be told no.
The client is excited. The buyer is aligned. The funder says, ‘We can’t say yes to that right now. Even though we have the money, we can’t approve a $80,000 contract. We’ve never paid more that $40,000 for any consultant ever.’
As you move closer to the funder, you (and your value) become more abstract.
To the client, you’re a person or a brand that holds a solution.
To the buyer, you’re a tradeoff and an value calculation.
To the funder, you’re a number until proven otherwise.
This is the same service seen from different perspectives. Which means selling well is also about translation.
Help the client feel the benefit so they talk about you when you are not in the room.
Help the buyer see the logic so they can defend the decision and repeat your case in their own language.
Turn both of them into internal megaphones carrying your value upward through the organization, because you may never meet the funder and the may only hear about you through someone else’s summary, enthusiasm, confidence or hesitation.
Which means you might be competing against the internal story told about you after the Zoom call ends. Among other things.
Thank you for reading.
Be well. Talk soon.
— Peter
P.S. I promise the funder isn’t the villain. It’s just about perspective and a nuanced reality of the buying process. Deals die even after strong sales calls, because often times funding relies on budget cycles, approval layers, and resource optics.
Whether you sell to a budget or wallet, if you want help navigating these buying behaviors, let’s talk.
