One account’s conditions, and where they come from.
An account sits between the people it buys from and the people it serves.
The account your team is looking at buys from other businesses and sells to its own customers. Both sides are running now, and neither of them began with your team’s offer.
Its customers expect things of it. Some of those it can meet with what it already holds. Some it cannot, and those are the ones that send it looking outside.
A new supplier is one possible response to a situation the account is already managing.
A purchase becomes relevant when it helps the account make something else possible.
The account owes its own customers something. Where it can meet that with what it already holds, nothing needs to change. Where it cannot, it has to bring the capability in from outside, and that is the moment a supplier becomes relevant to it.
By then the conditions are already set. Some were set at the far end, by the account’s customers, so that those customers stay protected, and they reach a supplier through the account. Others were set closer in, by an arrangement the account already has or a requirement it has to meet.
This is why Advisa starts on the account’s side. However far back a condition begins, your team meets it already formed, and it is a question about what that business has already promised.
One buyer case, built over the days and kept afterwards.
The buyer case is a record of one named account, built by the person carrying it and by Advisa, side by side, over the working days. It grows as the days go and it stays with your team afterwards.
It brings together what may make a response relevant, the other routes open to the account, what it would need to keep true, what your team can support with evidence, and what remains for the account to answer.
It holds what your team knows, what it is relying on without having established it, and what only the account can settle. Nothing in it assesses your product, its price, or how it stands against anybody else’s.
Public evidence may show named roles, formal routes, appointments, standards and timing. It cannot reliably show who will approve a change, what they need to defend, or when the question will become active. Those are questions for the account.
A record that arrived with its body filled in would settle the question before anybody had looked at it.
A line that names the kind of thing a field holds is not an answer.
Buyer case
How every line is marked
- known
- somebody here can say how they know it, and who said it
- assumed
- it is being relied on and nobody has established it
- to ask
- only the account can settle it
Every line carries one of the three and the name of whoever put it there. A line with nobody’s name on it is an opinion and it stays out of the record.
What may be making a response relevant now
What may have changed, or be coming into view, that this account needs to respond to
for example: a customer commitment, a new requirement, a capacity or timing constraint, a supplier issue, a new internal plan, or a change in its market
The source may be downstream, internal or external.
What could become harder, riskier or less possible if the account cannot respond, and for whom
for example: a delivery promise, continuity of supply, an approval, a budget, the person accountable, or the account’s reputation
The consequence may sit with the business, a person inside it, or one of its customers.
What else they could do about it
The other routes open to them, and what each one protects
for example: keeping the current arrangement, doing the work internally, waiting for a better moment, a different supplier, or deciding no change is needed
The strongest alternative is often keeping what already works and avoiding the cost of change. A change has to be worth more than whichever of these the account would otherwise take.
What would have to become true for a change to be the more workable route
for example: a date they cannot move, a cost that stops being bearable, an approval that arrives, or a customer that asks for something new
Some of these the account can answer today. Some only become true later, which is what makes timing part of the question.
What the account would need to keep true
The promise behind it, and who it was made to
for example: a delivery commitment, a launch date, a standard they have adopted, or a plan their board has approved
Serious purchases sit downstream of something already promised: to a customer, a regulator, a board, a market. The promise sets the conditions.
What has to keep running while this changes
for example: current output, a quality record, a customer service commitment, or an arrangement with an existing supplier
The part of their operation that cannot be disturbed. This is a common reason a sound proposition is turned down, and the account may never have said it aloud.
What they have to be able to show afterwards, and to whom
for example: a test result, an audit trail, a certificate, or a record of where something came from
An inspector, an auditor, their own customer, a board. The evidence they need is a condition on whoever supplies them, and it is written down somewhere inside their business.
What could make them turn it down
What leaving would cost them once they are in
for example: retraining, requalification, a contractual notice period, or work that would have to be done twice
Nobody commits to something they cannot leave. The cost at the far end shapes the decision at the near end.
The conditions in one place
| The condition | How it is marked | Who |
|---|---|---|
| e.g. a promise they have to keep, an approval route, or an operation that cannot stop | one of the three above (known / assumed / to ask) | whoever put it there |
A condition marked to ask is not a gap in the team’s knowledge. It is something the account has not been asked.
Beside what your team already holds
Each condition above, set against what is already inside your business. This is the join, and it is the reason the two days are spent together.
| The condition | What your team already holds on it | What it can show, and where that is | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|---|
| the same condition, carried over | e.g. something your team already does that may answer it | e.g. a named person or supporting record | answered / held but not answering / nothing yet / account first |
Four ways a row ends up. Your team can answer it. Your team holds something and it does not answer this one. Nothing yet. Or the account has to answer first.
Those positions also show what can be checked now and what has to wait for the account. Your team decides what to do first.
A row with nothing in it is a finding. It says what not to imply in the next approach, and it is not a reason to change what you sell.
Advisa takes no view on what your team holds or how strong it is. Your team says what it has and what it can show, and the right-hand column is your team’s to set.
This record stops here. What your team does with it is yours, and Advisa is no party to the decision.
Your team keeps the account. Advisa works beside the person carrying it.
Advisa is engaged by your team and works beside the colleague who carries the account. It does not contact that business, speak for your team, or take part in the decision.
Buyer-side names the side the question is asked from. Every answer belongs to your team.
The relationship, the offer, the outreach and every decision stay where they are.