The Economic Buyer Meeting Think of the Economic Buyer meeting as a wall. When you have a successful EB meeting in which the customer’s priority to buy, funds to make the purchase are confirmed and criteria is defined, you’ve made it over the wall. You get to complete the remainder of the process. An unsuccessful meeting means you hit a wall: your sales process is over. “Why would our sales process be over?” asked Jim. “Because the EB has discretion over the budget. Your product wasn’t budgeted for, and the EB decided that your product wasn’t a priority on which to reallocate budget.” I went on to explain that reps need to meet the EB prior to the POV, to frame and finalize the evaluation of their product differentiators into the decision criteria. That’s why information-gathering and preparation prior to the Economic Buyer meeting is critical. Your ability to find a large business pain, develop trust with a Champion, and align your differentiators in the POV criteria to their business issues will determine your success in the EB meeting and the sale. It’s the critical reason reps need to slow down during Discovery and Scoping stage. “Those EB meetings are daunting,” Steve (we all called him Stevie Mac), a manager in from the UK said. “Economic Buyer meetings have me as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I feel like I’ll hit that wall you mentioned.” “Calm down when you’re going in,” I said. “It’s normal to be a little anxious. In most sales processes, reps get nervous when meeting the Economic Buyer. However, if you’ve coordinated with your Champion and are prepared for the meeting, the majority of Economic Buyer meetings are confirmatory.” The key to a successful meeting is how you prepare for it with your Champion. You need to ensure that you have agreement on the EB meeting deliverables and the talk track with your Champion prior to the meeting. This preparation frames the topics, roles and especially the guardrails for the meeting, which will give your Champion comfort with the agenda and proposed outcome.”