Halloween Special: my scariest Buyers and what I learned from working with them.

Do you have a Buyer who terrifies you?

Do you feel like you’re immediately on the back foot as soon as you enter their office for a meeting?

Over the course of a 15-year career in Account Management working across the FMCG, Technology and Toy Sectors, I’ve encountered some petrifying Buyers.  Those Buyers put the fear of God in me when I saw their name flash up on my phone and they were responsible for countless sleepless nights.

To celebrate Halloween, in this article I will list three of my scariest Buyers (who will of course remain nameless!) and what I learned from dealing with them.

Freddie Krueger – The Nightmare on Elm Street

Just a few years into my career, I worked with a Buyer on a High Street account who, like Freddie Krueger, haunted me in my dreams.

She was an old school Buyer, who used every tactic in the book.  She was the sort of Buyer that you heard about on Sales training courses and wondered if they truly existed.  After working with her for 18-months, I can tell you that such characters do exist!

If I ever put one foot wrong or missed a deadline by even a minute, she would rain fire and brimstone upon me! And she was a tenacious negotiator too.  This Buyer revelled in getting the best deal for her business and was happy to dish out personal insults whenever possible.  And she also seemed to find joy in undermining and embarrassing me in front of my boss when he attended our meetings.

The thought of disappointing her and incurring her wrath gave me many sleepless nights and caused me to even have nightmares about upcoming meetings!

Jason Voorhees – Friday The 13th

More recently in my career I worked with a Buyer who was relentless in chasing me for answers.  He was like Jason Voorhees from Friday The 13th and seemed to stalk my every move!

To be honest, I couldn’t even find any fault with his approach.  The business I was working for at the time did its manufacturing in Southeast Asia where there were constant production issues due to COVID.  This Buyer would be call me multiple times per day to chase down his forecasts on key products.  Furthermore, this Buyer wouldn’t hesitate to escalate issues higher up the chain when there were stock delays.

Looking back, I actually disliked the shambolic Supply Chain of the business I worked for more than this Buyer’s style and approach, although this still didn’t diminish the torment he put me through over the course of our working relationship.

Regan – The Exorcist

The last Buyer I wanted to reference was one I worked with on a Grocery Multiple Account.  This Buyer’s style incorporated aggressive and puerile behaviour, which caused me much headache and frustration in the time that I worked with her.

She was prone to demonic childish outbursts like Regan from The Exorcist! I distinctly remember being on the receiving end of a very loud and public admonishment in her Head Office canteen, following the formal written communication of an upcoming cost price increase.

She also frequently deployed the tactic of turning up 30-45 minutes late for our meetings, thus compressing the meeting time and putting me on the back foot, having to adapt my presentations on the fly.  This Buyer left me banging my head against the wall on multple occasions.

What I learned from these Buyers.

Despite the stress and anxiety induced by these Buyers, I learned more from them than any of the Buyers with whom I had friendly relationships.

They transformed me into a more fastidious Account Manager, making sure that my attention to detail was on point. 

They also made me more empathetic.  In my attempts to avoid humiliating scoldings, I regularly put myself in their shoes and asked questions from their perspective like “What could my Account Manager do to make this range review run more smoothly?” Or “What could my Account Manager do to help me with my internal weekly reporting?”

This exercise helped me to pre-empt their requests and be proactive with tasks like tracking the JBP and Trading Terms or building collaborative forecasts to ringfence their stock.  Dialling up my empathy really helped me to sharpen my game.

Lastly, it helped me to become a more resilient salesperson.  I didn’t have any choice but to work with these Buyers on a day-to-day basis.  It made me treat the whole process as one big game, in which they were trying to gain an edge by triggering my insecurities and anxieties.  Once I realised this and was able to label their behaviour in my head, it empowered me to reclaim some control in the relationship.

How building Mental Fitness helps you to deal with scary Buyers.

Building your Mental Fitness is useful in helping you deal with scary Buyers.  Having the mental tools to stop your Saboteurs being triggered by their negative behaviour will help you to take back control in the relationship.

However, the development of these mental muscles takes at least 6-weeks of intense work.  If you are interested in this game-changing program then take the Positive Intelligence Saboteur Assessment https://www.positiveintelligence.com/saboteurs/ and then book a free 30-minute coaching call with me at https://www.expcoaching.co.uk/ to find out more!