Notes from the buyer side
I ran a vendor evaluation as an intern. Here is what the sellers did well, what lost them the deal, and what I would steal.
I spent part of my internship comparing vendors for a hardware evaluation. I was not the decision maker, but I did the legwork: first contact, gathering information, and building the comparison that went up the chain.
It was the first time I had been on the receiving end of a sales process, and it changed how I think about doing it myself.
What actually got my attention
TODO — of the vendors who reached out or responded, what made you keep reading? Be specific and slightly unflattering to yourself. The honest answer is usually something small.
What lost people
TODO — the behaviours that took a vendor out of consideration. Response latency is the obvious one. What were the less obvious ones?
Resist the urge to make this a list of clichés about pushy salespeople. Write the things that actually happened.
The thing nobody tells you about being the junior person on the buying side
TODO — this is the most valuable section and only you can write it. Something about the fact that the person gathering information often has no authority but enormous influence over what the decision maker ever sees.
The implication for sellers is direct and most of them get it wrong.
What I would do differently as the seller
TODO — three or four concrete things. Not principles, tactics.
The comparison itself
TODO — if you can share a sanitized version of the evaluation framework you built (the criteria and how you weighted them, with no vendor names and no numbers from anyone’s quote), do it. Showing the artifact is much stronger than describing it.
If you cannot sanitize it safely, cut this section. The piece stands without it.