Sample frameDay 177·Sales · Situation

Some purchases are decisions. Some are just paperwork with an approved supplier already on it.

Sales.

The Buyclass

5 min read·Apply by lunch

The question

On the largest opportunity you're working right now, is the buyer solving this problem for the first time, changing an arrangement they already have, or quietly re-ordering what they bought last time — and which of those three did you assume without ever asking?

The idea

In 1967 Patrick Robinson, Charles Faris and Yoram Wind published Industrial Buying and Creative Marketing, a study written for the Marketing Science Institute that did something unfashionable at the time: it looked at how organisations actually buy rather than at how salespeople sell. Out of it came the buygrid, and the useful half of the buygrid is the buyclass — the observation that business purchases come in exactly three kinds. A new task is a first-time purchase: nobody has done this before, the specification doesn't exist yet, and the organisation is buying an education as much as a product. A modified rebuy is an arrangement someone wants changed — new volume, new terms, a supplier who's slipped. A straight rebuy is a routine reorder from an approved list, often handled by one person in purchasing who will never meet you. The trap is that all three feel identical from your side of the table, because an enquiry is an enquiry, while from theirs they are entirely different events with different people in the room, different timelines and different odds. Being better than the incumbent decides a modified rebuy, counts for nothing in a straight rebuy, and in a new task doesn't arise at all: there is no incumbent to be better than, so what you're competing with is the buyer doing nothing.

The framework

01
Which of the three are you actually in?
Three questions in the first call will tell you: has this organisation bought anything like it before, is there an incumbent supplier or an internal way of doing the job today, and what changed to make them look now. A new task answers no, none, and something new. A straight rebuy answers yes, yes, and nothing much. Get the classification wrong and every judgement stacked on top of it is wrong too — your timeline, your list of names, and how much teaching the deal needs before anyone can even write a requirement down.
02
The in-supplier's quiet advantage.
Robinson, Faris and Wind drew a hard line between the in-supplier already sitting on the approved list and the out-supplier trying to get onto it. In a straight rebuy the in-supplier isn't competing; it's being administered, and there is no comparison taking place for you to win. That's why so much careful competitive positioning lands on nothing at all — you're arguing merit into a process that stopped evaluating merit some time ago. The out-supplier's only real move is to convert the straight rebuy into a modified one, which means giving the buyer a reason to reopen the question rather than a reason to prefer you.
03
The class decides who's in the room and how long it takes.
A new task pulls in the most people and takes the longest, because the organisation is writing a specification, building an internal case and waiting on a committee that hasn't sat yet — which is why a small first-time purchase can outlast a large repeat one. A modified rebuy moves fast in the other direction: the window opens when something breaks and shuts when the change is resolved. A straight rebuy involves almost nobody you will ever meet. Read the guest list and the calendar straight off the classification, and the deal stops surprising you halfway through.
04
Modified rebuys are made, not found.
Straight rebuys become modified rebuys when something disturbs them: a price rise, a service failure, a new person in the role, a merger, a regulation, a contract renewal date. Those disturbances are events you can watch for rather than luck you wait on. Keep a short list of the accounts where you're the out-supplier and write against each one the specific thing that would reopen the question and roughly when it might happen, then time your approach to land on it. Most of what gets called persistence is contacting locked accounts at random and calling the silence a pipeline.

Members only · 4 principles + template + AI mentor

364 more frameworks are waiting.

The Buyclass is Day 1 of 365. One framework every morning for a year — across strategy, sales, negotiation, leadership, and more.

$1 /day

Billed $365/yr · cancel any time

365 frameworks

12 topics · templates · AI mentor

Reserve your place — $365/yr →

One payment a year · the whole library · no auto-renewal.

More Sales frameworks

All 24 sales frameworks →