Discover the Decision-Making Unit

The Decision-Making Unit (DMU), sometimes called the ‘buying centre’, is a way of understanding the roles different people have to play in complex B2B purchasing decisions. Using a framework to understand those roles can help you figure out how you need to approach each stakeholder involved in making the choice to purchase your product, which substantially improves your rate of conversion.

So, who is involved in any given DMU? Great question. Read on to find out more about these roles and what each is responsible for.

Decision-maker

These are people who can personally say, ‘Yes, we’ll buy that one,’ without checking with or answering to any other person. They’re responsible for actually deciding on a purchase at the end of the day—but they’re usually surrounded by other people who can heavily influence what that decision will be. Typically, this is someone in the C-suite who is unlikely to be immediately accessible to the intrepid sales professional.

Gatekeeper

If you have ever cold-called a business completely under-prepared (in your distant past, we’re sure) and received a short, ‘No, thank you, not interested,’ from a stern voice before you’ve even finished introducing yourself, you’ve fallen afoul of a wary gatekeeper! These people usually fill roles like receptionists or executive assistants, and as the name implies they can be a serious obstacle between a sales professional and a decider. Despite that, they can also become invaluable allies and it’s worth taking the time to be polite, friendly and ingratiating if you can, because a gatekeeper has unparalleled access to the decider, and might even be responsible for arranging their schedule.

Influencer

Typically, this person is a staff member with limited independent power in decision-making. Often, they will have been specifically tasked with finding out more information about several products or services, and their recommendations can carry a lot of weight. Even though they don’t have specific decision-making power, keep the lines of communication open with an influencer, because they’re usually specialists providing a well-researched opinion.

Both your customers and your colleagues will thank you for making sure new customers don’t feel cut loose.

Although at face value these roles can seem like irrelevant or obscure jargon, being able to define your contacts within a business as belonging to a particular role allows you to quickly categorise their ultimate relationship to your goal—that is, how each person is related to closing the deal. Being able to do that helps you determine how to approach each of these people for maximum impact, with minimum friction.

And if you’re thinking, ‘well, that sounds grand, but how am I supposed to know which people are in the decision-making unit of my target account?’ then, as usual, we’ve got your back. At MarketBase+, our DMU Discovery feature can expose the entire DMU of your prospect’s company to your curious eyes—with just one click.