ABSTRACT
The key focus of the buyer is to avoid problems and to ensure security of supply and appropriate levels of service and quality. The bad news is that people are unlikely to feature high on the list of people that the buyers consider to be worth spending a lot of time with. The value of the expenditure is high enough to be worth spending time on, and the purchases are not so critical that they will expose the business to undue risk if something goes wrong. The value of the spend is high enough to be important to both the seller and the buyer. Industrial distributors who once supplied bearings and fastenings now supply bottled water, cleaning supplies, and safety clothing – anything where they can add more top-line turnover to the account. The value sale is not a product or a service sale – it is a positional sale.
