The Buyer Side Chat

By Subhanjan SarkarBusiness Entrepreneurship

The Buyer Side Chat episodes

December 28, 2021PitchLink: In Conversation with Sharon-Drew Morgen
In Conversation with Sharon-Drew Morgen, Owner, Morgen Facilitations, Inc.
Sharon-Drew Morgen is an original thinker, thought leader, and inventor of systemic brain change models. She is the author of the New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and 7 other books on how people make change decisions that may conclude in buying. Sharon-Drew has been inventing ways to facilitate change via new neural circuitry, developing facilitation models for over 40 years and has trained over 100,000 salespeople in her Buying Facilitation® model.
Sharon-Drew Morgen
She has developed a system of questions that goes beyond bias. When the buyer is asked these questions, it helps them to pinpoint what they actually need to understand about their own buying imperatives. This is an entirely different line of questioning from the usual sales route. Sales asks questions that help the seller understand how to pitch. This, on the other hand, helps the buyer understand their own motivations for buying. The right approach can bring down the sales cycles from three years to as short as a four-months.
Need does not necessarily result in buying. For instance, many of us know we need to lose weight, yet we do not take action to effect this. Congruent change that brings excellence at the end is what motivates action. Understanding the “buy-side”, and not the sales model, is what is important for building trust, gaining credibility, and ultimately effecting consistent sales in the long run.
With 25 years of experience with very large groups and small, Sharon-Drew brings new ideas, new thinking, and new levels of success in closing sales and finding buyers. By incorporating servant-leader values, win-win collaboration, and original thinking around the buying decision process, Sharon-Drew Morgen seeks to offer her unique, provocative style to sales conferences and associations. To date, Sharon-Drew is the thought leader behind how buyers buy. Her inventions and facilitation models are explained on www.sharon-drew.com.
Listen in.
These and more insights you never find in the public discourse around Sales and Buying in this eye-opening episode of The Buyer Side Chat.
Run time – 41.39 mins.
42 min
December 18, 2021PitchLink: In Conversation with James Meads
In Conversation with James Meads, Managing Partner, James Meads Consulting.
James Meads is a seasoned procurement professional who now helps mid-market companies with their procurement digitization strategies and works as an advisor to procurement technology startups on their product development and marketing strategies. He is also the host of the popular weekly show “The Procuretech Podcast”, featuring all that is exciting and innovative in the digital procurement space.
James Meads
The digital procurement space has evolved along with greater digital transformation in organizations. RPA and Artificial intelligence will transform the procurement space to a great extent within the next 10 years. Many of today’s repetitive functions will become relegated to automated processes, freeing up productive time for procurement. However, this requires that people in these functions become more technology savvy. At the same time, sales needs to be more about making human to human connections, even if organizations leverage AI for initial prospecting.
Sales in general has good data, but procurement does not have access to very good data. This is because Sales has fewer SKUs, and fewer people who touch that data. Procurement data is on the other hand, inherently of poor quality in most organizations. Procurement officers in elucidating their challenges towards digitization and greater strategic roles, usually cite poor data and resources. Resources are typically tied to the fact that they are spending time on repetitive tasks that could be automated.
Better data quality will enable procurement to be better prepared in terms of strategic functioning. Most transactional procurement functions will be eliminated, as these can be performed through AI and RPA. Only in strategic roles and supervision, machines will not be able to replace humans because AI cannot think for itself- it still has to be programmed to produce the results. There will thus have to be data analysts to qualify the data and extract the right insights to refine the algorithms that can produce actionable results.
These and more insights you never find in the public discourse around Sales and Buying in this candid episode of The Buyer Side Chat.
Run time – 44.26 mins.
45 min
November 16, 2021PitchLink: In Conversation with Helen Mackenzie
In Conversation with Helen Mackenzie, Director, Vladcat Enterprises Ltd.
Helen Mackenzie is a former public sector CPO with over a decade’s experience of procurement. Her pioneering work to put communities at the heart of the procurement process has received international recognition.
Helen describes herself as “Crazy in Love” with procurement and is currently working to support the development of the social procurement to leverage the power of social networks and make a positive impact on the relationship between buyers and suppliers. She is the Director, Vladcat Enterprises Ltd.
Helen Mackenzie
Even ten years back the procurement process was limited to being functional, transactional and process driven. This has changed over the years. Procurementmust do much more than delivering savings and managing risks. It has to take a much broader look at the entire business and align with providing benefits at all levels of the organization. The role is no longer about putting a contract in place or simply renewing the same contract every year.
Procurement is also more conscious about the entire supply chain of the vendor. They would like to ensure continuity, minimize risks,and also ensure ethical labour practices upline— and not just for risks of reputational damage. They are also conscious about sustainability and ecological effects on a much broader spectrum in general.
Based on spend threshold, selling strategies for items will vary, as will buying cycles and the complexity of thedecision-making process. For simple items the seller only must ensure that the product gets visibility. For other products and services buyers are typically looking at value and impact. This demands value judgements rather than simple binary decisions.
These and more insights you never find in the public discourse around Sales and Buying in this candid episode of The Buyer Side Chat.
Run time – 41.32 mins.
42 min
November 04, 2021PitchLink: In Conversation with Thomas J. Williams
In Conversation with Thomas J. Williams, Founder & Chairman, Strategic Dynamics Inc.
Thomas J. Williams, who has founded Strategic Dynamics Inc., is a former senior executive with many years of general management and sales and marketing expertise. He has worked with major health care organizations, and for 25 years he has consistently built shareholder value by selling and marketing high technology products and services in the domestic and international markets.
Thomas J. Williams
Thomas notes the vast changes that have taken place over the years in the space of buying and selling, highlighting especially the fact that procurement has now become a very highly specialized profession. Buyers have more information and have researched their requirements well ahead of probing sellers. It is therefore imperative for sellers to keep up with the new realities of selling to the evolved buyer.
Sellers are always preaching that their customers must change. Yet, it is the seller who is most resistant to change. They stick to their older methodology, which only worked in the past. This is a paradox.
Honesty and integrity in sales is derived from a desire to genuinely help customers buy. Building rapport and relationships with customers is motivated by the understanding that over time, in spite of churn, it is the customer who is likely to stick with the seller, even when she switches organizations. The converse philosophy is to quickly make quota by selling at any cost and move on to a different organization within two years.
These and more insights you never find in the public discourse around Sales and Buying in this candid episode of The Buyer Side Chat.
Run time – 35.00 mins.
35 min
September 27, 2021PitchLink: In Conversation with Tania Seary
In Conversation with Tania Seary, Founder, Procurious.
Tania Seary is the founder and chairman of Procurious, the world’s first online social network designed specifically for procurement and supply chain professions. Globally recognized as an influential member of the procurement and supply chain profession, she discusses what has changed in the procurement processes in B2B companies and what challenges are they facing in the complex post covid supply chain world.
Tania Seary
Tania believes that there is an urgent need to train procurement professionals just as much as sales professionals, and that improved resources are critical to the progression of the procurement profession globally. It is with such convictions that Tania Seary founded Procurious.
Their recent survey has revealed that in spite of the upheavals due to the pandemic, the supply chains remained relatively stable and unaffected. No consumer had to face empty shelves or indeed any shortage of requirements. This goes to show how agile and resourceful the supply chain professionals have become, being able to quickly respond and reorganize.
In today’s B2B procurement it is imperative to look at tier 2 and tier 3 suppliers, to assess and ensure that the suppliers of first level suppliers themselves do not fail. Suppliers, reciprocally, must become transparent and disclose their logistics chains to their customers as well.
These and more insights you never find in the public discourse around Sales and Buying in this candid episode of The Buyer Side Chat.
Run time – 41.25 mins.
42 min
August 28, 2021PitchLink: In Conversation with Scott McNicholas
In Conversation with Scott McNicholas Regional Manager – South East England & London of BSI.
Scott believes if you want to get in front of more prospects and sell more then you need to align your sales process to the way your prospects buy NOT how you sell.
Scott McNicholas
Buying has changed over the years, the recent decade seeing vast transformation in the procurement process. Firstly buyers are far more aware of available products and solutions now. However, the glut of information has also caused problems. The overload of availability also implies that it is more difficult making choices.
At the same time, the participants in a buying decision process have increased in number. Moreover, these stakeholders may have different stakes, and different outcomes that they would want to optimize. Which is why the product or solution now needs to serve different purposes for different decision-makers in the organization. So while selling has become extremely difficult in digital age, buying too has become a difficult and complex process.
One cannot ignore the fact that selling just has not kept up with customers’ expectations, mostly. Tools and processes aimed towards making selling easy have simply not been utilized efficiently to facilitate buyers’ concerns and provide meaningful solutions that serve their interests.
These and more insights you never find in the public discourse around Sales and Buying in this candid episode of The Buyer Side Chat.
Run time – 37.14 mins.
38 min
July 20, 2021PitchLink: In Conversation with Lora Cecere
In Conversation with Lora Cecere, founder of the research firm Supply Chain Insights.
Lora Cecere is the founder of the research firm Supply Chain Insights. As an enterprise strategist, Lora focuses on the changing face of enterprise technologies. Her research is designed for the early adopter seeking first mover advantage. With more than 30 years of diverse supply chain experience, Lora spent 12 years as an industry analyst with Gartner Group, AMR Research, and Altimeter Group.
Lora Cecere
Lora founded Supply Chain Insights after a long and varied experience in selling and research across a very wide spectrum of industries. Supply Chain Insights helps business leaders have first mover advantage by understanding shifts in technology and buying patterns.
In the last decade procurement has become an island within organizations. Procurement has become very automated, making it more efficient, but less effective. Planning processes and manufacturing do not factor material buying, stopping at manufacturing constraints. The supply chains within organizations have become less functional.
Sellers who interact with buying organizations have to contend with multiple stakeholders, but communication within the buying organization is broken, and buying signals are misleading, resulting in dysfunctional supply chains.
These and more insights you never find in the public discourse around Sales and Buying in this candid episode of The Buyer Side Chat.
Run time – 36.10 mins.
37 min
June 25, 2021PitchLink: In Conversation with Philip Ideson
In Conversation with Philip Ideson, Founder and Managing Director of Art of Procurement.
Philip Ideson is the Founder and Managing Director of Art of Procurement. Art of Procurement provides procurement leaders with the insights, resources, and expertise they need to drive company growth. Prior to Art of Procurement, Philip led procurement transformation, category management, and sourcing programs for clients of Accenture. Previously, Philip was Head of International Procurement, Sourcing & Third-Party Risk Management at Ally Financial.
Philip Ideson
Twenty years ago procurement was transactional and tactical. Each deal had a single focus, without taking into consideration the big picture. Today procurement behaves more like an architect, trying to glean business solutions using a supply base, as opposed to dealing with a set of specifications or a scope of work.
The buyer is more informed. Once faced with a challenge, they will go out and do the research. Once they have a reasonably good idea of how they will solve the challenge, they will start talking to people. Twenty years ago, the buyer had to rely on a representative and did not have the full perspective on all the alternative solutions available in the marketplace.
Buyer organizations often recruit expertise from outside the organization. That decision is based on what the stakeholders perceive as the difference between what they already know and what they should know about the challenge and its corresponding solutions. They are also more likely to invest in outside expertise if they perceive the solution to be critical to running the business.
Except for the largest organizations in the world, most companies can’t afford to hire varied expertise across fields. Most critical purchases are long term solutions, and purchases are made only every five years or more. So, it makes more sense to hire experts when the need arises- in other words, hire external expertise as the need arises.
These and more insights you never find in the public discourse around Sales and Buying in this candid episode of The Buyer Side Chat.
Run time – 35.18 mins.
36 min
June 11, 2021PitchLink: In Conversation with Slav Vasilevski
In Conversation with Slav Vasilevski, Digital Procurement and Sourcing Transformation expert.
Slav is a seasoned thought leader with end to end exposure to Sourcing and Procurement, Contract Negotiations, Vendor Management in FMCG, Food, Banking and Life Science. He has over 20 years of experience. He holds a Master of Business from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and studied Digital Transformation at Columbia Business School.
Slav Vasilevski
Slav has previously worked at Syngenta, ANZ Banking Group and L’Oreal. He is an expert in acquiring, implementing and running technology and managing technology vendors.
In dealing with Corporates, sellers often do not realize that organizations follow a process and that selling to a company is very different from the B2C formula. Understanding the hierarchy and structure of the organization is the first step. Understanding who the solution is for is the next most important step.
Twenty years back there was no mobile phone or internet as we know it. Today there are a plethora of productivity solutions and SAAS products. Decisions are based on “fit for purpose”.
Buyers are typically handling many vendors and many solutions. A host of data points are available. The availability of technology that can process that data on our behalf, is a game-changer. Machine Learning will be able to augment decision making on our behalf in the near future.
Although information about buyers and sellers are available openly today, there is still a need for trusted channels that can provide deeper knowledge regarding solutions, providers and buyers.
These and more insights you never find in the public discourse around Sales and Buying in this candid episode of The Buyer Side Chat.
Run time – 35.15 mins.
36 min
May 24, 2021PitchLink: In Conversation with Ved Prakash Srivastava
In Conversation with VP Srivastava, Consultant: IoT Business Unit, Tata Communications and Ex-Chief IT Tata Steel. VP comes with 40+ years of experience in managing Digital Solutions at Tata Steel ranging from formulation of Digital Strategy, through Execution and Running Digital Systems Operations.
Ved Prakash Srivastava
Earlier applications that were procured were all custom built. The hardware came with software solutions and operating platforms. Once a procurement was made, buyers were married to the solution for 10 years or more. So each procurement had to be weighed in the light of such long term returns, flexibility and vendor support.
What has changed now is that there are myriad solutions. Hardware and software options can be considered independently. The total cost of ownership and barriers of entry are low. Given a large number of solutions – one can choose between higher support by choosing to procure from a single vendor or choose the ‘best in class’ solution which may mean buying solutions from more than one vendor. This may mean sacrificing some amount of interoperability and single-point support.
Solutions that are procured by a company are either critical or support solutions. Critical are those that run the business- such as hardware-software platforms that run ATMs or other financial services. Because these run the business themselves, and if they fail, the business stops. Support solutions are those that aid the business. These are enablers such as predictive analytics. They are essential, but business does not stop if they fail. There are even less critical operations, such as say payroll processing, which happens only once a month.
Over the years, the volume of critical solutions have increased, and organizations have to rely more and more on IT to run the business. Both components – the time duration of the procurement decision, and the business impact of the decision have to be weighed in while making a purchase decision.
These and more insights you never find in the public discourse around Sales and Buying in this candid episode of The Buyer Side Chat.
Run time – 37.18 mins.
38 min

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The Buyer Side Chat, your podcast of record for B2B buying, talks to actual buyers, persons not personas, in the quest to understand the Real Buyers Journey. Their trials and tribulations. Challenges…

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