The Chinese Decision Making Unit
If you are selling to a large company, there is a good chance that the buying decision is being made more than one person. We call this the “DMU” or Decision Making Unit. If you are selling to traditional Chinese companies, there is a very good chance you will not be spending too much time with the real decision-makers. There is a good chance you will have never actually met them. (Some people will say that you may never even find out who the decision-makers are, but that is becoming less and less true.)
What does this mean to the sales professional? You had better have a method for dealing with the internal selling process at your prospect company. In other words, you won’t be carrying the message to the decision – maker. This presents you with 2 challenges:
- 1) Motivate your contact (or find contacts who are already motivated) to carry your message to the decision-makers.
- 2) Prepare this contact of yours to bring the message “upstairs”.
Let’s take a look at these two factors in more detail.
1) Motivate the message-bearer.
This sale may be important to you, your company, HIS company, and all the future generations.
But is it important to the “gatekeeper” that you are dealing with? What does he care about, and why? There’s a good chance it is not what you think.
People are more motivated by FEAR OF MAKING A MISTAKE than by DESIRE FOR ADDITIONAL PROFIT, particularly when the profit goes somewhere else, but the fear is right there with them. Are you presenting your company as stable, experienced, and safe?
Find out what this person cares about, and do your best to solve those problems.
2) Prepare the messenger.
If you are successful at selling to the gatekeeper, he will carry your message up the ladder. Or he will try. Maybe. You’ll never really know. But you can prepare the messenger so that he can do a better job for you.
Since you know that the buying decision will be made by someone else, you can prepare a presentation tailored as specifically to this decision-maker as possible. A quick, well-organized powerpoint presentation — translated into Chinese and English — with all the important buying points a top-level manager would care about. Make sure you put it on a nice disk — maybe even attached to your company letterhead and brochure. The DMU presentation should be brief — no more than 7 – 10 ppt slides, and should include your contact information (consider using the footer and a closing “Thank You” page with your contact info). Give it to your contact, but explain to him how to use it to explain your offering to the rest of the DMU.
Will this work every time? No, it has to be handled well. You have to really convince your contact to help you by carrying your message to the DMU — and that is going to require some persuasion. There may be some downside or risk to this. But if you can find a way benefit this person, he may be willing to help you (if it is helping him more).
But just because he is willing doesn’t mean he is able. So help out. Give him good materials to work with and train him to deliver your basic message.
It is not as good as getting in to see the decision-maker yourself, but sometimes that doesn’t happen right away. If you remember these basic ideas about selling to the DMU, your chances of success improve.
