Selling to Procurement: 7 Secrets to Decoding Procurement for Smarter B2B Selling and Negotiating Paperback – March 5, 2013

Anyone who has spent any time in sales knows how difficult purchasing people can be. It seems like it is only getting tougher to deal with these people. This is not a selling or negotiating "book." It helps to open the curtain to show what is really going on in purchasing. Here are some of the things you will learn.Purchasing has goals. Obviously, hammering you on price is one of them. But there are many others. Some of these goals were new to me and I now see how I could use these in helping to close business.The other thing I learned is that the negotiating games and tactics you see from procurement are just part of their normal purchasing process. This book helps you get behind the scenes to learn why they are using the tactic and how you can deal with them.Some of the people who I have to deal with in purchasing are really difficult. They seem like back office people. I now realize that part of this has to do with the maturity of the procurement organization. The book gives insights into purchasing maturity and how to use this in your selling strategy. More mature purchasing organizations expect different things from their suppliers. You need to be prepared. Less mature purchasing organizations don't have much influence. Don't let them fool you.In larger accounts, there are often lots of people in procurement who try to get involved in the buying decision. The book helps to identify who all these people are and what makes them tick. I've encountered these category managers before from purchasing, but did not really understand what their job was. I now know what they do and how to use this in selling.Overall, great insights and good advice on how to deal with purchasing or procurement. I ended up wanting more, but maybe that's a good sign. It's well worth your time!

It fairly quick to read this book on Kindle and it gave me a good insight on how procurement people think and what goals and strategies they live with. I'm looking for customers who genuinely believe that BeeMobile as a supplier can provide insights around what is crucial when looking for professional software development services. Earlier I just avoided procurement, but reading this book gave me confidence to approach them head on. I even approach Chris Provines on LinkedIn and he was happy to take my call and gave me even more details on how to go forward with a really difficult account and it's seem like I might be able to turn it around. It's a huge account and it's one of the more difficult ones in our industry and location.

This is a must read for sales professionals in the B2B world. Humanizes procurement and provides a rationale for their tactics and tricks. It is good to understand how the person across the table thinks and acts.

Is deep study about procurement works inside companies then it translate into a very practical tool to improve your sales I highly recommend this book for those interested in learn a useful technique to industrial selling

There was no real how to to anything really usable within the book. Filled with a lot of generalizations and filler material. Save your money.

Critical information when considering b2b selling . the book is structured well for you to to digest and implement key aspects into your selling process.

As a medical technology professional in the B2B marketing space, selling to increasingly professionalized procurement people is one of the hardest parts of the job. A big challenge is really figuring out what's on the mind of the procurement person and how to convince him/her to buy.Mr. Provines' book is a departure from a lot of other pricing books on the market as it looks at the psychology/motivations/drivers of procurement. This really helped me understand what was going on from a procurement perspective. Further, the book provides some insights and strategies on negotiating with purchasing.If you are looking for a practical how-to-manual for getting the best out of a negotiation with procurement, this is a must-have.