Buyers and organisations
Why DECIDE looks at each Buyer separately, and how the organisation's own NIMTS progression fits alongside.
In a complex opportunity you are working with two things at once: the individual Buyers, and the organisation they work for (the prospect). DECIDE keeps them separate, because they move in different ways.
Each Buyer is on their own journey
The DECIDE steps apply to each Buyer individually. Every Buyer has their own perceptions of value, so every Buyer is at their own step. You might be engaging with one Buyer while another is already at Invent.
This is what makes DECIDE different. You are not trying to move "the account" forward. You are helping each Buyer, one at a time, reach their own decision. When you have a yes from each Buyer, you have the opportunity.
The organisation follows NIMTS
The organisation goes through its own progression, summed up as NIMTS. Every organisation works through these in the same order, and each is settled before the organisation moves to the next.
| NIMTS | What it means |
|---|---|
| Need | The organisation has a need. It may not even know it yet, and you may be the one who sees it first. |
| Interest | The organisation becomes interested in the need and in doing something about it. |
| Money | The organisation starts to think about what the problem is costing it, what a solution might involve, and what budget that points to. |
| Time | The organisation works out how soon it needs to act and how important it is. |
| Shortlist | With money and time settled, the organisation engages suppliers and forms a shortlist. |
NIMTS describes how far the organisation has progressed. The DECIDE steps describe what you do with each Buyer. The two don't line up one-to-one, so see DECIDE steps and NIMTS are different things before reading anything into a mismatch.
In the DECIDE App
The App gives you both views at once.
- The prospect (organisation) perspective is where you complete a Situation Appraisal: what the opportunity is, and whether the organisation is at Need, Interest, Money, Time or Shortlist.
- The Buyer perspective is separate for each Buyer, because each Buyer will be at a different DECIDE step.
To plan what to do across all of them, see Planning your strategy. To understand where each Buyer stands, see Buyer Types and Motivation and Support.