How many times you have make a sale with key or large customer, and that you have not even met or seen the man who made the decision to purchase. This is typical in a large organizations where almost nobody know who is the ultimate decision maker, or is it deliberately hiding. And this is especially true in situations where the decision is made by a group of people, such as board of directors, which is the main result of multiple individual decision-making.
In these situations, influence on decision-making is usually indirectly, through intermediaries and sponsors, and therefore very difficult and uncertain. In such situations, you practically have to train sponsors to sell to your boss (decision makers) for you. This requires a special set of skills that traditional sales training does not recognize at all. Here, we don’t have a question like: "How to influence on the decision makers?" but "How can affect the sponsor-allies to influence the decision makers?" And this is huge difference.
It is not the same when you buy something for 10 Euros, or if you're buying something for a million. In a small shopping, customer is much more aware of the specific value they receive for the small sum of money. In a large purchase, it is much harder, however, the seller must build and develop the experience value for the customer, because it is almost not possible to feel and understand the value of something that costs a million euros.
In small sales, people are automatically aware of the advantages and benefits of the product. We have the opposite situation in a large sales. For the key customer, it is more important a huge amount of money that should be spent in the present, rather than all possible benefits that will be enjoyed only in the future.