The In’s and Out’s of Incumbent Sales Rep Consultation in the Pre-decision Stage of Organizational Purchasing

Historically, sales reps’ main source of influence came from their ability to demonstrate that their products and services were the best fit after the customer had defined their own needs and requirements (Farrell and Schroder 1996). However, as Tuli et al. (2007) point out, customers are including suppliers much earlier in the organizational buying process. In many cases, customers have come to expect suppliers to be an integral part of needs identification and requirements definition, a step in the process traditionally owned solely by the organizational buying center (Galbraith 2005; Handfield and Giunipero 2009). This has led sales organizations to realize that sales people who are able to influence the buying center much earlier by helping to identify customer problems or opportunities will have a significant advantage over reps consulted later in the buying process.