The secretary - situation:
The "strong position" of a secretary can be critical for the appointment of a supplier. There have been stories about sales representatives who failed in some companies because the "informal" influence of the secretary brought the boss and/or the buyer up against this particular salesman.

The secretary - how the sales representative should behave
Always be friendly, but don't overdo it, that is the supplier's representative's motto. You can easily get in the good books with little personal gestures (again no exaggeration, please) like congratulating on birthdays, etc.

The user - situation:
The user or consumer of the purchased products has to be happy with his purchase decision. In many cases he will therefore be asked before a decision is made. The buyer knows that there might be differences of opinion even if the product quality is excellent and fulfils all requirements, because the user doesn't feel his technical competence properly respected and involved. In some business enterprises users have long since assumed product selection responsibilities. The role of the buyer is simply to optimise the purchase for the benefit of the company. Hereby optimisation is not synonymous with the lowest price, but with the best price/value ratio.

The user - how the sales representative should behave
The sales representative requires a lot of technical competence for the meeting with the user. In very demanding cases the sales rep should be accompanied by a technical consultant from the supplier who can provide in-depth comments on the customer's situation. The user has to be convinced of the quality and the product benefits. However, you have to make sure to take into account how the decision-making competence is distributed in the customer's organisation. Neither the buyer nor the technical consultant should feel neglected or played off against each-other by the sales representative.

The boss - situation:
Bosses are result-oriented. They have invested their capital expecting a profit. The boss will always see to it that his company's purchasing department makes its contribution to maximise profits and will give his approval for purchase decisions only if he is convinced of the commercial and economic aspects of the deal.

The boss - how the sales representative should behave
Why go to the little boss (buyer)? I'll go to the big boss straight away! That strategy won't work. A wise boss won't ignore his buyer, but rather inform him and make him outwardly appear as the one making the decision. For this reason a sales representative should directly address the boss only in exceptional cases and with a great deal of sensitivity and intuition and after informing the buyer beforehand. If he in turn is approached directly by the boss, he will stick to the conditions of the offer which he has negotiated and agreed to with the buyer. Even the boss will only obtain an improvement of the conditions if he shows a willingness to oblige: by agreeing to a higher purchase volume, by committing himself to a substantial follow-up order, etc.

The informal expert - situation:
Informal experts are hard to discern since they do not appear in an organisational chart and they cannot be recognised by a specific functional name. An informal expert could be a colleague whose counsel the buyer values highly, or his secretary, his wife, etc. An informal expert is addressed by the buyer to make sure that he makes the right decision.

The informal expert - how the sales representative should behave
Sales representatives with the ability to listen carefully find out about informal experts by paying attention to how the buyer describes past decision-making processes or to which persons he attributes special expertise. Caution: informal experts change from time to time and from one technical field to another. However, once an informal expert is made out, it would be beneficial to make a good impression on him (or her) to make sure that he/she recommends that the buyer buys only from the "likeable" salesman from company X. Not paying attention to seemingly "uninteresting" people in the customer's business can be quite dangerous. These individuals just might be the informal experts!

The storekeeper - situation:
In addition to receiving and dispatching goods, the job of the storekeeper is also to point to stock problems or grievances. He is informed about all movements of goods in the customer's business. He knows, for example, who delivers how much and when. He is not always in agreement with the buyer's decisions. This also concerns the purchase of large quantities of goods which might cause problems with storage space and warehouse expenses.

The storekeeper - how the sales representative should behave
A conversation with the storekeeper provides information on the customer's business conditions. A look into the warehouse shelves opens insights into the competitor's situation, an opportunity to estimate the potential, etc. If the storekeeper takes a liking to the sales representative, he just might accept larger deliveries from time to time without lodging a complaint in the purchasing department about the additional burden.

Final remarks:
Sales representatives know about informal relationships and associations in the customer's business and are friendly to all employees at all times.

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