# One deal, many people: who is in the buying committee

> Users, a champion, the budget owner, procurement, legal and IT security: who shapes a company purchase and what each of them fears.

- 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 1/32, ~25 min
- Source: https://productovi.com/courses/b2b-marketing-and-sales/one-deal-many-people

## Where you work

**Alex Tutor:** Welcome to the course. **Klasna** is an online tutoring school from Kyiv; **Klasna for Teams**, its corporate line, sells English programs to employers and bills them quarterly. A few companies already buy, mostly through the founders' contacts. Next year Teams needs a pipeline of its own.

**Alex Tutor:** You're the first marketing-and-sales hire at Teams, reporting to Marta, who runs it. In this course you'll map buyers, choose whom to sell to, build demand, run deals, price proposals and keep key accounts. Today: who actually decides when a company buys training.

## Pavlo says yes

**Marta:** Good news first. Veloria, the logistics company, wants English for its dispatchers and account managers, who deal with EU partners daily. Their HR and learning manager, Pavlo, loved our demo.

**Pavlo:** Honestly, this is exactly what our people need. I'll push for it inside. Send me the proposal and let's get going!

**Sofia:** Sounds like Veloria is in. Shall I mark the deal as nearly closed?

**Alex Tutor:** Not yet. Pavlo wants it, and that matters. But who pays for it, who signs the contract, and who checks the employee data the platform stores? He answered none of that.

**Alex Tutor:** A company purchase is rarely one person's call. The group that influences or approves it is the **buying committee**: any member can stop the deal, and each guards against a different risk.

> **Exercise:** After the demo Pavlo said: "This is exactly what our people need. I'll push for it inside. Send me the proposal." What can you honestly conclude?

## Who is in the room

**Sofia:** So who else could be on Veloria's committee?

**Alex Tutor:** Start with the **users**: the dispatchers in the lessons, worried about their shifts. Then the **champion**, Pavlo: he wants the purchase and pushes it forward. His risk is personal: if it flops, it was his idea.

**Alex Tutor:** The **economic buyer** controls the budget and gives the final yes or no. Pavlo answers to the finance director, so that's our first guess. The worry there: is this worth more than anything else that money could buy?

**Alex Tutor:** Then the gatekeepers. **Procurement** compares price and terms with other suppliers. **Legal** reads the liability and data clauses. **IT security** asks where employee data and lesson recordings live, and who can see them.

**Marta:** Six roles, and we've spoken to one. Last spring we lost a deal just like this: HR loved us, but procurement renewed the supplier already on its list.

> **Exercise:** Match each role in Veloria's buying committee with its typical worry.

## The champion is not the buyer

**Sofia:** But Pavlo is the one who'll work with us every day. Isn't his yes the one that counts?

**Alex Tutor:** His yes opens the door; it doesn't pay the invoice. A deal with no route to the budget owner is a hope, not an opportunity.

**Alex Tutor:** Treat a champion as a partner, not a target. Help Pavlo win the argument inside Veloria: what the finance director needs to see, what procurement will ask, what IT security will want.

**Marta:** So the status isn't "Pavlo said yes". It's "Pavlo wants to sell this internally, and we don't yet know to whom".

> **Exercise:** Which signals show that the Veloria deal has moved **beyond the champion's enthusiasm**? Choose all that apply.

**Alex Tutor:** So if Pavlo is a partner, not the buyer, what do you actually do with him next?

> **Exercise:** Pavlo will have to sell the program inside Veloria to people you haven't met. What is the most useful thing to do with him now?

## Ask, don't guess

**Sofia:** Couldn't I just look up Veloria's team online and work out who's who from job titles?

**Alex Tutor:** Titles help you prepare, but they mislead: training money sits with HR in one company and with department heads in another. The reliable map comes from asking someone inside.

**Alex Tutor:** Quick check before we ask Pavlo anything: how far can a website take you?

> **Exercise:** **True or false:** the job titles on Veloria's website tell you reliably who owns the budget for an English program.

**Alex Tutor:** And ask about the process, not about power. "Are you the decision-maker?" puts Pavlo on the spot, and he may say yes just to save face.

**Sofia:** Let me try. Pavlo, when Veloria last bought a training program, how did it get approved?

**Pavlo:** The safety course last year? I found the provider, the finance director approved the money, and procurement compared three quotes. Legal got the contract at the very end, and that took three weeks.

> **Exercise:** Which question to Pavlo is most likely to reveal, honestly, who decides on the purchase?

## Draw the map

**Alex Tutor:** Now turn that into a map: for each role, who it is, what worries them, what they'll need from us. A blank cell is your next question, not a guess.

> **Veloria's buying committee, first draft**
>
> | Role | Who | Their worry | What they'll need |
> |---|---|---|---|
> | Users | Dispatchers, account managers | Lessons eating into shifts | A schedule that fits shifts |
> | Champion | Pavlo, HR and learning | His name on a flop | Material to make the case inside |
> | Economic buyer | Finance director (to confirm) | Money better spent elsewhere | Cost and the expected result |
> | Procurement | ? | Price and terms vs other suppliers | A clear quote to compare |
> | Legal | ? | Liability, data clauses | The contract draft early |
> | IT security | ? | Where employee data lives | Written answers on data |

**Marta:** Legal took three weeks last time. If we send our contract in the first week instead of at the end, we win those three weeks back.

**Sofia:** And procurement compares three quotes. So we'll be compared, whatever Pavlo thinks of us.

**Alex Tutor:** Exactly. And the biggest blank is the budget: does this fit Pavlo's training budget, or does it need new money from the finance director? That's the next question.

> **Exercise:** Put the steps in order to map a prospect's buying committee.

**Alex Tutor:** Back to Marta's point about legal's three weeks. What would you do with it?

> **Exercise:** Last time Veloria's legal team got the contract at the very end and needed three weeks. Veloria wants to start early next year. What's the best move?

## Your turn: find the budget owner

**Marta:** I'm meeting Pavlo on Thursday. I don't want to ask him "do you have the money?" What should I ask instead?

**Alex Tutor:** Write Marta two questions that reveal who owns the budget without putting Pavlo on the spot. Ask about the past or about next steps.

**Sofia:** Past purchases and next steps, not "are you the boss". Got it.

**Alex Tutor:** Keep them open: a yes or a no tells you very little.

> **Exercise:** Marta meets Pavlo on Thursday. Write **two questions** that would reveal who owns the budget for Veloria's English program, without asking Pavlo outright whether he is the decision-maker. Add one short sentence on why each question works.

> **Key ideas**
>
> - A company purchase is shaped by a **buying committee**: users, a champion, the economic buyer, procurement, legal and IT security. Any of them can stop the deal.
> - Each role guards against its own risk: time, reputation, money, price and terms, liability, data.
> - The **champion** wants the deal and moves it forward; the **economic buyer** owns the budget and gives the final yes. They are rarely the same person.
> - Job titles are a starting guess. Map the committee by asking about past purchases and next steps, and turn every blank into a question.

**Alex Tutor:** Next time: why the same committee behaves differently when it buys for the first time, renews, or switches from another school.

- Next lesson: [Three buying situations: first-time, renewal, switch](https://productovi.com/courses/b2b-marketing-and-sales/three-buying-situations.md)

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