Most sales processes are designed around the seller’s convenience. Enquiry comes in, we qualify it, we quote, we follow up, we close, we invoice. That sequence is neat and linear, and it misses most of what the buyer is doing.
The buyer’s process started weeks before you heard of them and carries on long after your invoice is paid. It has six stages, and your process typically only overlaps with the last three of them. The parts of their journey you do not touch are where deals are quietly won and lost — usually by somebody who was in the conversation earlier than you were.
The six stages, from their side
1. No problem yet
They are living with it. The system is slow, the supplier is average, the process is clunky, and none of it has become urgent. What you do here decides whether you are remembered at stage two.
2. Something triggers it
The trigger might be a failure, a bill, a new contract, a resignation, a rule change or a competitor doing something. The problem becomes worth solving on a specific morning. Almost every purchase you have ever made as an owner has a trigger date like that behind it.
3. They set the criteria
This is the stage nobody sees and the stage that decides the outcome. They work out what good looks like, usually by asking two or three people they trust, reading whatever is easy to find, and remembering what went wrong last time. The specification gets written here.
4. They shortlist
Now they invite two or three firms to quote against criteria that already exist. If this is the first you have heard of it, you are being marked against somebody else’s paper.
5. They justify it
The decision has to survive contact with a co-director, a finance person, a spouse or a board. Risk gets examined. The question stops being “is this good” and becomes “what happens to me if this goes wrong”.
6. They buy, then judge
The decision is not finished at signature. For weeks afterwards they are looking for evidence they chose well. What you do in that window sets up every repeat purchase and every referral you will ever get from them.
Which stage decides it?
Stage three decides it. Whoever helps a buyer work out what good looks like has an enormous advantage, because they get to put their own strengths into the criteria without ever mentioning their own name.
That is why a buying guide, a straight answer on the phone, a checklist of questions to ask any supplier, or twenty minutes of useful diagnosis is worth more than a beautiful quotation.
If you only ever arrive at stage four, you are one of three quotes, competing mainly on price.
How to use it this week
Reverse-engineer your last five wins
For each one, find out what triggered the search and who they spoke to before you. Ring them and ask.
Write down your customers’ trigger events
List the specific things that turn a tolerated problem into an urgent one. Three or four is plenty. Everything in your marketing should be aimed at those moments.
Build one stage-three asset
Write a short guide to choosing a supplier in your category, including the questions that make you uncomfortable.
Change the shape of the first meeting
Spend it establishing what good looks like for them, rather than describing what you do. You will hear the criteria out loud, and sometimes you will be allowed to add to them.
Deal with stage five before you are asked
Name the risk in your proposal and say how it is handled — terms, exit, guarantees, phasing. Whoever is defending your quote internally needs ammunition, and you are not in the room when they need it.
Put something deliberate in the first month after purchase
Send a check-in, a short review or a thank you that is not an invoice. Stage six is where referrals start.
The mistakes to avoid
The first is confusing your sales process with the buyer’s. The system tracks enquiry, quote, follow-up, won or lost, and it feels like a process. It is a record of the last three stages of somebody else’s decision.
The second is “just following up”. Chasing a quote adds nothing at stage five, because the buyer is not waiting for enthusiasm, they are waiting for a risk to be resolved or a person to be convinced. Ask what still needs answering and who else has to be comfortable.
The third is going quiet at stage one. That is the only stage where you can build the relationship cheaply, and it is the one owners abandon first when they get busy, and the pipeline goes empty ninety days later.
Questions to ask yourself
- Out of 10, how well do you know what triggers somebody to start looking for what you sell?
- At which stage does your business typically first appear in a buyer’s journey, and what would it take to appear one stage earlier?
- Who else is in the room when your quotes are discussed, and what do they need that you have never given them?
- What deliberately happens in the thirty days after somebody buys from you?
Where this fits in coaching
How Customers Buy is worked through in Business Coaching, and it sits alongside two related mindsets: The Ladder of Loyalty and Kettle Logic.
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Frequently asked questions
What is a trigger event and how do I find mine?
A trigger is the specific thing that turns a tolerated problem into an urgent one on a particular morning: a breakdown, a bill, a resignation, a new contract, a rule change, a competitor doing something visible. Until a trigger fires, nobody is buying, however good your offer is. You find yours by ringing your last five customers and asking what was happening in the week they started looking. Three or four triggers is plenty, and once you have them, your marketing has somewhere specific to point rather than shouting at everybody.
Should I give away a buying guide that helps people choose a competitor?
Yes. Buyers decide what good looks like at stage three, usually before they speak to anybody who sells. Whoever helps them write those criteria has an enormous advantage, because their own strengths end up in the specification without their name ever appearing. A guide that only flatters you reads as a pitch and gets discounted. One that includes the questions you would rather not be asked reads as honest, and honesty is what gets forwarded to the person who decides. You are buying a place in the conversation early.
Is chasing a quote worth doing?
Chasing is not, but following up properly is. By the time your quote is sitting with someone, they are usually at stage five, where the job is no longer to be liked but to survive an internal argument about risk, budget and other people. Ringing to ask whether they have had a chance to look at it adds nothing to that argument. Ask instead what still needs answering, who else has to be comfortable with the decision, and what would have to be true for it to be signed off. Then give them something they can forward, because you are not in the room when it is discussed.