The sequence of steps a buying organisation takes to evaluate, approve, and execute a purchase decision — including stakeholder alignment, evaluation criteria, approval stages, legal review, and procurement. Distinct from the seller's sales process, which should be designed to map onto it.
Also known as:
Most sales methodologies describe the world from the seller's perspective: stages, milestones, and qualification criteria defined by what the seller needs to happen. The buying process describes the same journey from the buyer's perspective: the internal approval steps, budget release process, stakeholder reviews, legal and security checks, and procurement timelines that the buying organisation must complete before committing to a purchase. These two journeys often have different logic, different owners, and different timelines — and the gap between them is a primary source of late-stage deal slippage.
A seller who does not understand the buyer's process is working in the dark. Common surprises that derail late-stage deals — a security review that takes six weeks, a CFO approval required above a certain threshold, a procurement template that must replace the seller's standard contract — are all visible and manageable if discovered early. Discovered late, they become close-date slips and forecast misses. Understanding the buying process is not due diligence; it is deal control.
Mapping the buying process requires asking the champion a specific set of questions early in the evaluation: who are all the stakeholders who will be involved in the decision, what are the formal approval stages above the champion's level, what does the legal and procurement review process look like, and has there been a purchase of similar scope and value before? The answers become the basis for a Mutual Action Plan that includes the buyer's internal steps, not just the seller's milestones.
Buying process discovery is a required element of Stage 2 in the Closing OS. Before a deal can advance to late stage, the champion must have confirmed: all stakeholders involved, the approval path above their level, the paper process timeline, and whether there are any internal steps that have not yet started. The Mutual Action Plan we build in every qualified deal includes the buyer's process steps as equal participants alongside the seller's milestones. Deals that do not have this mapped by Stage 2 consistently slip — because the buyer's process, not the seller's sales activity, is what determines when the deal can actually close.
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