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Miller Heiman Strategic Selling

Miller Heiman strategic selling is a way through a large sale in which several buyers do not share one motive.

The questionWho really decides in this account, what does each of them want, and where do we stand with each?

Strategic Selling. The planning worksheet is known as the Blue Sheet.

Process · Robert B. Miller and Stephen E. Heiman, 1985

Economic buyer Final say on spending
User buyer Lives with the result day to day
Technical buyer Screens the offer, can block it
Coach Wants you to win and gives access

Simplified view of the four buying influences named in this note, which describe roles in a decision and not job titles.

When to use it

A deal has sat at "verbal yes" for months and nobody can say who has to sign.
A rep's forecast depends on one friendly contact who has no budget authority.
Several account teams chase large deals, and pipeline reviews have no shared way to judge how sound a deal is.
A competitor reached someone in the account first, and you need to find where its position is thin.

When to avoid it

The sale is small and fast, with one buyer. Filling in the plan costs more than the deal returns.
Procurement runs a scored tender with fixed points of contact. The access the method depends on is closed, and the scoring criteria matter more than the influence map.
The problem is what the rep says in the meeting, not who is in the room. A conversation model such as the Challenger Sale fits that better.
Reps will fill it in after the fact to satisfy a CRM rule. No method helps when the data is written to be accepted, not to be true.

Overview

Miller Heiman Strategic Selling is a method for planning large sales in which several people in the buyer’s organization each influence the decision for different reasons. It identifies four buying influences, checks where the seller stands with each, and turns the gaps into next steps for the account team. The choice it supports is where to spend selling time in an account, and whether to keep treating a deal as likely.

It was built for large, multi-buyer sales and is overhead for small ones. The roles describe what a person does in the decision, not a job title. A worksheet that is not revised after each meeting records what the team hoped, not what it knew. The method is proprietary, and this note describes the ideas only.

The buying influences and the response modes

Economic buyer

Has the final say on spending and can release money that is not in the budget. Looks at overall return and risk. There is one per decision, and this person is often the hardest to reach.

User buyer

Will live with the result and judges how it changes daily work. Usually cannot say yes alone, but can quietly sink a deal during implementation. There can be several, and their interests may conflict.

Technical buyer

Screens the offer against specifications, security, legal, or purchasing standards. Typically can block the deal and cannot approve it. Often met early in the sale.

Coach

Someone inside the account who wants you to win and has the credibility and information to guide you. Tested by behavior, not friendliness. A real coach gives you access to the others and tells you bad news.

Response mode: Growth

The person sees a gap between where things are and where they could be, and wants to go further. The approach is to show how the proposal gets them there.

Response mode: Trouble

The person feels a problem or risk now and wants relief. Urgency is highest, so the approach is a clear, quick resolution.

Response mode: Even keel

The person sees no gap, and the status quo suits them. Without a gap there is no reason to act, so the approach is to find out whether one exists before spending more selling time.

Response mode: Overconfident

The person believes results are better than they are. Confronting them rarely works, so the approach is to wait for events to open a gap and stay available.

What it is not

A form to fill in. The worksheet records questions the team asked. Left unrevised after meetings, it records what the team hoped.
A chart of job titles. The four influences are functions in the decision. One person can hold more than one, and one function can be split across several people.
A way to identify a coach by affection. A contact who likes you but cannot get you to the economic buyer is not a coach.

The steps

State the decision

Write one sentence on what is being bought, by which unit, and what must be true for it to close. The map is only useful against a defined decision.
Name the people in each role

For each of the four influences, put a name against it, or record that the name is missing. Gaps are the first finding. A deal with no identified economic buyer is not forecastable.
Test the names against evidence

Ask how you know. Who has approved this size of spend before? Who told you? Rate where each person stands toward you (for, against, or neutral), and mark the coach only if that person has produced access or information.
Read each person's response mode

Decide whether each person is in growth, trouble, even keel, or overconfident, with the evidence for that read. People in even keel or overconfident modes will not move without a gap, so the plan for them is different.
Plan the next contacts and revise after every meeting

For each gap and each person who is against or neutral, set who sees them, what to bring, and what you need to learn. Update the map after each meeting, and downgrade deals that have no route to the economic buyer.

In practice

At a quarterly pipeline review, a quarter of the forecast sat in "negotiation" at a vendor of clinical scheduling software for hospital groups. Asked who would sign, three of the five reps named the person they had been dealing with, an operations manager. We mapped one deal. The ward managers who would use the product were keen. IT security had not been met. The "champion" was an operations director with no budget. Nobody had met the finance director, and no coach was confirmed.

The next step was a test of the coach: ask the operations director for an introduction to the finance director. The director declined and said the decision was already made. That told the team more than the demo had. The deal was moved down the forecast, security was contacted that week, and the forecast fell by about the size of that deal. Reps found it uncomfortable, and the quarter's number was closer to what happened.

What you leave with

A named person for each buying influence, or an explicit record that the name is missing.
A rating of where each person stands toward you and which response mode they are in, with the evidence.
A dated plan of next contacts aimed at the biggest gaps, with an owner for each.
A forecast adjustment, with deals reclassified by access to the economic buyer and by the presence of a real coach.

Failure points

Naming the coach by affection

The friendliest contact is labeled coach. A friendly contact who has no standing with the economic buyer gives no access, and the team believes it has a route that it does not.

Treating one person as the whole buying side

The deal is built on one contact, who is often a user or a technical buyer. When that person's view is overruled by someone the team never met, the loss appears sudden.

A map filled in once

After a reorganization or a new executive, the map is wrong and nobody notices. A stale map is worse than none, because it carries confidence.

Compliance in place of inspection

Managers check that the worksheet is complete, not that it is true. Reps write plausible names to pass the review.

Heavy planning on small deals

The method is applied to every opportunity, and reps spend more hours on records than on customers. The approach was built for large, multi-buyer sales and should be reserved for them.

The failures above are usually Stakeholder Algebra: while the analysis was precise, the people who decide were not handled correctly.

Origin

Robert Miller and Stephen Heiman, working with the writer Tad Tuleja, published Strategic Selling in 1985. It came out of the training and consulting company they ran, which was later called Miller Heiman Group, and it was followed by further books and programs for call planning and account management. A revised edition appeared as The New Strategic Selling.

Korn Ferry completed its acquisition of Miller Heiman Group on November 1, 2019, and the method is now part of Korn Ferry's sales offerings. The name, the program, and its worksheets are proprietary and sold as training and software. This note describes the underlying ideas in general terms and does not reproduce the worksheet.