# Case: map Veloria's buying committee > Prepare the first meeting with a logistics prospect: who is in the decision, what each person fears, which proof and pilot to bring, and what to ask first. - Course: [B2B Marketing and Sales: Win Your First Company Customers](https://productovi.com/courses/b2b-marketing-and-sales.md) - Module: Who buys, and why it takes seven people - Lesson 4/32, ~34 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/b2b-marketing-and-sales/map-the-committee-case ## Pavlo's request **Alex Tutor:** You're still Klasna for Teams' first marketing-and-sales hire. This module showed that a company buys through several people, each guarding against a risk. Now a real prospect arrives. **Marta:** Veloria, logistics: about 600 people in several shifts, drivers, dispatchers and a back office. Forty handle foreign carriers and customs paperwork in English. Pavlo, their HR and learning manager, wants a proposal. We meet Thursday. **Pavlo:** We'd love to start early next year. Yaryna, our finance director, will want numbers. Stepan, our operations director, says his dispatchers are stretched already. And any app needs an IT security check first. **Sofia:** Then I'll write the proposal for Pavlo: program, schedule, price. He's the one who asked. **Alex Tutor:** Hold on. Pavlo asked, but he just named three more people who can stop this. Map the buying committee before you write anything. **Alex Tutor:** For each person, four lines: role, fear, what they need to see, what you don't know. Start from fear: in a company purchase, saying no rarely gets anyone in trouble. > **Exercise:** Match each person at Veloria with what they most likely fear and what would reassure them. ## Who owns the budget? **Sofia:** Yaryna wants numbers, so the budget must be hers. I'll write her in as the economic buyer. **Alex Tutor:** That's a guess, and guesses on a map turn into facts. Training money might sit with HR or operations, or need Yaryna's sign-off. Write «budget owner: unknown» and ask. **Alex Tutor:** Let's pin that down, because it's the most common slip on a first map. > **Exercise:** **True or false:** Yaryna wants numbers, so you should write her on the map as Veloria's economic buyer. **Marta:** And Pavlo is our champion. He'll argue for this in rooms we never enter. Make that easy for him, and never go around him. **Sofia:** How do I ask who signs without making him feel tested? **Alex Tutor:** Ask about the past, not his authority: «When Veloria last bought team training, how was it approved, and who was involved?» Last time is easier to describe, and more accurate. > **Exercise:** Which questions belong on your list for the first meeting with Pavlo? Select all that apply. ## Proof that fits the fear **Sofia:** For proof, I'd bring our best reviews and a slide on how strong our tutors are. **Alex Tutor:** Reviews answer a question nobody at Veloria asked. Proof must fit a fear: Yaryna needs a success measure agreed upfront, Stepan a schedule around shifts, IT security plain facts about data. **Marta:** And be honest: our Teams clients are smaller offices, none in logistics. Say so, and offer to prove it on their own people. **Alex Tutor:** That's what a pilot is for: one group, a few weeks, success measures agreed with Pavlo and Yaryna upfront, and a joint decision date. It lowers the buyer's risk without a big bet. **Sofia:** And the IT check? Can I just say we're fully secure so it doesn't slow things down? **Alex Tutor:** Never promise what you can't show. Ask for their security questionnaire early and answer plainly: what data we keep, where, how long, who sees it. **Alex Tutor:** So what exactly would you do about Veloria's IT check? > **Exercise:** Pavlo says any app at Veloria needs an IT security check. How should you handle it? > **Exercise:** A colleague drafted this plan for the Veloria meeting: > > > 1. Thank Pavlo for reaching out. > > 2. Show 12 slides on Klasna's tutors, reviews and the AI practice partner. > > 3. Send Pavlo the full price for all 40 people and ask him to sign this month. > > 4. Leave the IT security check until after the contract. > > What is the core mistake? ## The order of the work **Sofia:** So: four people, each with a fear, a need and an unknown. Where do I start? **Alex Tutor:** Each step feeds the next. Proof answers a fear you've written down, a pilot tests what proof can't show yet, and your questions come from whatever is still unknown. **Marta:** Then the agenda. Ask Pavlo whom to invite. Don't email Yaryna or Stepan from contacts found elsewhere: that's his call. **Sofia:** What if he says only he will come? **Alex Tutor:** Fine for a first meeting. Leave a one-page summary he can forward, a line for each of the others. Pushing him to bring his boss can cost you the champion. **Alex Tutor:** Let's turn that into a rule you can use with any champion. > **Exercise:** Asked whom to invite on Thursday, Pavlo says only he will come. What do you do? > **Exercise:** Put the preparation for the first Veloria meeting in order. ## A note before Thursday **Alex Tutor:** First, a short note to Pavlo: make his job easier and ask one thing you truly need to know. **Sofia:** Should I attach our price list, so we look serious? **Marta:** Not yet. Our list price is 800 UAH a lesson, and it will matter. But a number with no scope invites Yaryna's no before she knows what it buys. **Alex Tutor:** And if Pavlo asks for a figure, give it plainly, with what it covers. Being open about price is honest; leading with it is just early. **Alex Tutor:** One more check on timing before you write the note. > **Exercise:** **True or false:** attaching Klasna's price list (800 UAH a lesson) to the first note to Pavlo makes Klasna look serious and saves everyone time. > **Exercise:** Write the note you'd send Pavlo a few days before Thursday (3–5 sentences). Suggest a short agenda, ask whom he'd like to invite, and ask one question that helps you learn how a purchase like this gets approved. No pressure. ## Your meeting plan **Marta:** One page for Thursday, please, eight to twelve lines: who's who and what they fear, the budget question, the proof, the pilot, your first three questions. **Sofia:** And if half the map is question marks? **Alex Tutor:** Then it's an honest map. A first meeting is there to turn question marks into facts. A plan that guesses everything looks confident and is wrong somewhere. **Marta:** One rule for the page: nothing on it we can't back up. > **Exercise:** Write Marta a one-page plan for the first meeting with Veloria. > **Key ideas** > > - The person who asks for a proposal is rarely the only one who decides. Map everyone they mention. > - For each person: role, fear, what they need to see, what you don't know. > - Write «budget owner: unknown» rather than a guess, and find out by asking how the last similar purchase was approved. > - Match proof to each fear; be open about what you can't prove yet. > - Offer a small, time-boxed pilot with success measures agreed in advance and a joint decision date. > - Help the champion carry the case; invite others through them, never around them, and never with pressure. **Alex Tutor:** Keep this map. Deals like this one move slowly, and every meeting should leave fewer question marks on it than the last. - Previous lesson: [Reducing the buyer's risk](https://productovi.com/courses/b2b-marketing-and-sales/reducing-the-buyers-risk.md) - Next lesson: [An ideal customer profile from your best customers](https://productovi.com/courses/b2b-marketing-and-sales/ideal-customer-profile.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.