Episode Transcript
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Introduction (00:05):
Welcome to the
Small Business Marketing Huddle.
Our show is all about takingaction.
We equip you with the marketingknowledge and confidence you
need to make real progress.
So let's huddle up and listenin to the latest episode with
your host, Lily Richmond.
Lily Richmond (00:40):
This is your
first time visiting.
In today's episode, I'm goingto talk about decision making
(01:16):
and how more than one personcould actually be involved in
the decision to purchase yourproduct or service, and why it's
really important for you tounderstand that.
In marketing land, we like touse a lot of jargon, and buy a
rolls is no exception, and it'sa term that gets bandied around
quite a bit If you sell productsor services to other businesses
(01:37):
, for example, but it is equallyimportant to understand if you
sell to consumers as well.
So today we're going to unpickwhat buyer rolls are, why you
need to understand them and howyou can really use this
information to tailor yourmarketing approach so that you
can get more sales, because ifyour marketing is talking to the
(01:59):
wrong person or ignoring animportant influencer, then you
are really leaving sales on thetable that somebody else will
very happily hoover up Now.
I don't want you to be thatperson, so let's get straight
into the topic of buyer rolls.
Essentially, they are thevarious people who play a role
(02:20):
in the decision to purchase aproduct or service from you, and
there are six different buyerrolls.
They are the initiator, aninfluencer, a gatekeeper, a
decider, a purchaser and a user.
Now, don't worry, I'm going toexplain all of these, so don't
(02:43):
get too worried if you haven'tmemorized already what they all
are.
Now, depending on what yourbusiness sells, some of these
rolls might be performed by thesame person, but it's handy for
you to just think about thesesix rolls to work out which ones
are relevant to your specificbusiness situation.
And we're going to use a reallysuper simple example to
(03:03):
illustrate the point.
So let's pretend that yourbusiness hires out and maintains
indoor plants for businesses inyour town.
Let's start with the person whois the initiator.
So this is the person who comesup with the idea that something
needs to be purchased.
So in our example, the officemanager in a local business
(03:25):
might raise in a I don't know ateam meeting that it would be
nice if the office was morevisually appealing and healthy
and that having some plantscould help do that.
So in that case, they haveinitiated the idea for the
purchase in their team meeting.
They are the initiator.
Now, of course, this onlyapplies if there is an initiator
(03:46):
.
Sometimes there isn't, becausesomeone isn't shopping for
whatever it is that you sell inyour business.
So, for your role as a businessowner often is about generating
demand for a product or service, so there might not be an
initiator at all.
The next role is the influencer,and there could be more than
(04:06):
one of these.
An influencer is someone whoseperspective or opinion is
important or valued in thedecision-making for your product
.
They influence the decision.
So, using our example of thelocal business looking for
plants for its office, otherpeople in the team who are based
in that office regularly, theymight be influencers about
(04:28):
whether they think it's a goodidea that they have plants there
.
Or maybe a connection withinthe office manager's business
network and coffee group hashired a company in the past for
indoor plant maintenance andtheir opinion and experiences
are valued to the office manager, making them an influencer.
(04:49):
So influencers can come in allshapes and sizes, and this is a
broader term than the idea thatyou might think of when you
think of influencers andinfluencer marketing, because
those are personalities whopromote products and services
specifically, but we all haveinfluences in our lives.
(05:09):
The third role is the gatekeeper, and a gatekeeper is someone or
something that controls theflow of information or access to
the decision-makers andinfluencers.
So how would this work in ourplant hire example?
Well, if you think about it,google could be a gatekeeper,
(05:32):
because they hold and theydisplay review information about
your plant business.
But it could actually be aperson.
So a gatekeeper could be theoffice receptionist.
Who's that first point ofcontact?
Typically, a gatekeeper issomeone that sits between you
and your business and theinfluencer or the decision-maker
(05:53):
.
Let's take our plant businessexample and imagine that you
were proactively contactingbusinesses locally, trying to
convince them to add plants totheir office.
Now, oftentimes you would bestopped at the receptionist or
the office administrator.
But actually you know that youneed to get to that office
manager or the business owner,as they have the influence and
(06:15):
or the power to make thedecision to buy.
So your email that you've sentis getting stuck at the office
receptionist and it's likely toget buried.
They often do, Because thatreceptionist either plays an
active role in shielding thedecision-makers from cold calls
or they might just sit on thatinformation and they might
delete your email.
So that's what a gatekeeper is,and it is really key to
(06:38):
understand if you havegatekeepers in your purchasing
decision process, because theycan really make or break whether
you get sales through the dooror not.
Now onto the fourth role.
This is the decider.
This one's pretty simple it'sthe person who makes that final
decision to purchase.
So let's use our example again.
Let's say it's the businessowner who makes the final
(07:00):
decision about whether theoffice is going to pay to have a
plant, a higher-age andmaintenance company work with
them.
So the office manager haspresented the idea, they've gone
and looked at some preferredcompanies and the costs for each
of the businesses that arearound locally and it's that
business owner who's gonna makethat final decision to give the
sign-off for that spend.
(07:21):
Now the fifth role is thepurchaser.
This is the person who is goingto make contact with your
indoor plant hire andmaintenance business and
purchase from you and in thisinstance, let's say it's the
administration assistant in thecompany.
It's not the owner of thecompany that's actually
purchasing, putting the carddetails in or making the call,
getting a quote.
(07:41):
It's the office administrator.
And then the final role is theuser, and this is the person who
benefits from the product orservice, but they might not have
actually played a role ininfluencing, deciding or
purchasing.
In this case the users arepeople who work in the office,
but it could also be clients whocome to visit and use your
(08:01):
meeting rooms or sit in areception area waiting for their
appointment.
They're users too, so the userdoesn't always have to be the
person who buys the product.
So I've rattled through thosesix roles.
Let's just quickly go over themagain.
They're the initiator, theinfluencer, gatekeeper, decider,
purchaser and user.
(08:23):
So why is it valuable for you tounderstand these roles?
Well, it helps you be moretargeted and more effective in
your marketing, and if you'velistened to any of my earlier
episodes already, you'll realizethat I am super hot on targeted
and effective marketing, right?
So how does it help you?
There's three key things,really, that can impact your
(08:43):
marketing approach how decisiongets made to purchase your
product or service, who'sinvolved in that decision to
purchase and at what stages,because your marketing might
need to engage more than oneuser or more than the purchaser.
There might be an influencer ora decision maker that you
aren't even taking into accounttoday.
(09:04):
It also helps you identifywhere those barriers might be,
or information sources that youneed to be part of because they
are the gatekeepers, like, forexample, an accredited industry
database.
If your business has some formof accreditation, then you might
want to be on that accreditedindustry database as an example.
(09:26):
So it's a really good way foryou to understand what those
information sources are that youneed to be part of and where
potential barriers are in thebuying process for your product
or service.
So let me give you a real lifeexperience from my career that
shows how important it is foryou to understand buyer roles
and how it influences themarketing that you do.
(09:47):
So I used to market credit cardbrands for a number of years and
back in the day when sendingdirect mail was a thing yes, it
wasn't actually that long agothat direct mail was still being
sent out but we used to sendout promotional campaigns for
double reward points orsomething like that, if you
spent over the weekend on yourcredit card and we used to use
clear plastic sleeves so thatthe person who picked the mail
(10:12):
up through the letterbox couldactually see what the offer was.
Now, in this day and age, weprobably wouldn't send out
plastic sleeves, but that'sanother topic for another day.
So why would we send out thoseclear plastic mailers?
So you could see what thepromotion was.
Well, quite often the personwho had the credit card account
(10:32):
had a supplementary card holder,and often that would be a
husband and wife or partners, soone of them would be the main
card holder and then there'd bea supplementary card holder.
Of course, the account holderwould have to be sent that
mailing.
It would be addressed to them,but ultimately we knew that
(10:52):
there'd be a big influence onpurchasing decisions was
actually the other party in therelationship, and so it was a
really good way for us to beable to communicate out to some
influences about promotions thatwere happening, even though we
weren't writing to them directly.
So that shows you how you cantailor your marketing if you
(11:13):
really understand who thevarious people are in the
decision to purchase yourproduct.
Okay, and next up, I'm gonnatalk about how you can apply
this concept in your businessand the actions that you can
take.
Right, so now we understand thedifferent buyer roles, but I
(11:34):
wanna point out here that it'sreally important that you keep
it simple and remember that youreally need to adapt these ideas
to your business.
You might not have all of theseroles involved in the buying
process.
It might be just one person whoinitiates, decides, purchases
and uses right, so don't overcomplicate it if your product or
(11:56):
service is really simple, butit's a really good exercise if
you go through and say, right,well, does that role exist in
the decision to purchase myproduct or service?
You know, what I'm trying toteach you here is how you apply
these concepts in your business.
It's not just a one size fitsall formula.
And another thing to consideris whether you sell business to
(12:18):
business or whether you'reselling business to consumer.
Okay, business to businessorganizations when they are
selling, often there are morepeople involved in the decision
making process.
That's why I use the example ofa plant high-region maintenance
company selling to anotherbusiness.
(12:39):
So if you're a business toconsumer and it's just one
person or two people that areinvolved, that's all cool, okay.
So what are the actions that youcan take right now to implement
this in your business?
Okay, down to the actions.
Here are three things that youcan take away to gain clarity on
(12:59):
who the real decision makersare for your product or service
and really supercharge theeffectiveness of your marketing.
So, number one what I want youto do is get a piece of paper
and write out each role, andI've actually created a
worksheet for this, which I'lltalk about at the end.
But if you're not gonnadownload my worksheet, get a
piece of paper and write outeach role.
And just a reminder number oneis the initiator, number two is
(13:24):
the influencer, number three isthe gatekeeper, number four is
the decider, number five is thepurchaser and number six is the
user.
The second action is I want youto walk through each of those
roles for your business and jotdown next to them, if there is
someone in that role, who theymight be, what they might look
(13:46):
like, what are they interestedin.
Build up a bit of a pictureabout those people and what's
important to them.
Once you've done that numberthree, there are three questions
that I want you to answer.
The first is who do I need toconsider in my marketing?
So once you've brainstormedeach of those six roles and
whether they apply to yourbusiness, now you know who you
(14:09):
need to consider, so write thatdown.
The second question is how do Ireach these people?
What are they interested in?
Where do they hang out?
What sort of media do theyconsume?
Who are their influencers?
Build up a bit of a picture ofthem.
So think about how you're goingto reach them.
And then the third question iswhat messages resonate with
(14:31):
those people, what's importantto them, what's their problem
that they're trying to solve orwhat's the objection that they
might have to your product orservice.
And if you've listened toepisode one, you already know
how to create engaging messagesbased on understanding your
customer's problem or need.
Now, if you haven't listened toepisode one, have a listen
after this episode and you'llget a great set of actions and
(14:54):
tips on how you can message moreeffectively based on your
customer's problem.
Now you can go away and you cantailor your marketing and make
sure you're engaging the rightpeople in it.
And, as I've mentioned, I'veactually created a worksheet for
this, because I appreciate thatit's a bit jargon filled and
there's a few steps to thisprocess.
So either visit the episodedescription for the link or head
(15:18):
to my website atmarketingondemandco, and then
it's slash buyer rollsB-U-Y-E-R-R-O-L-E-S buyer roles
or one word.
So that's it.
You should have everything youneed now to define your buyer
roles and make sure that you aretargeting the right people with
(15:42):
your marketing.
Okay, that's the end of theepisode.
Thank you so much for beingpart of the huddle today.
I really hope you enjoyed it.
Now don't forget to hitsubscribe, because next time
we're going to talk all aboutpurpose and how getting clear on
what yours is will make yourmarketing less icky and salesy
(16:04):
and much more meaningful andengaging.
And this is going to be acracker of an episode to start
the new year, so you don't wantto miss it.
And as a quick reminder, visitthe episode description to get
access to my worksheet to helpyou work out your buyer roles
and how to market to thosepeople.
Thank you so much for listeningand I will catch you in the
next episode of the SmallBusiness Marketing Huddle.
(16:25):
Now for the legal jargon.
This podcast is for informationand education purposes only.
We make no business performanceclaims or guarantees in the
information shared.
The podcast content is generalin nature and does not
(16:46):
constitute advice for yourunique business situation.