What decision criteria include
Decision criteria are how a buyer will judge the options in front of them. Some are formal, such as a scoring sheet in a request for proposal, a list of required integrations or a security standard. Others are informal and rarely written down: how easy the product feels to use, how much the team trusts the vendor, or whether the rollout will disrupt a busy season. Technical, financial and business criteria often belong to different people, so a single deal can have several sets.
Example
In discovery, a buyer lists three priorities: integration with their accounting system, a go-live before their busy season and a price inside the budget. The rep asks who set each one, learns the go-live date comes from the CFO, and builds the proposal around a dated rollout plan.
- You
When you compare the options on your shortlist, what will matter most to the decision?
- Buyer
Price, obviously. And it has to work with our accounting system.
- You
That makes sense. Who else will weigh in, and is there anything they'll look at that we haven't covered yet?
Why it matters
If you don't know the criteria, you're guessing what to emphasize. Learning them early lets you focus the demo and the proposal on what will actually decide the deal, and spot criteria that favor a competitor while there's still time to respond. Sellers who help the buyer think through criteria they hadn't considered, such as what happens after go-live, can shape the decision in a fair and useful way. Finding out the criteria from a lost-deal email is the expensive way to learn them.
How to practice it
Practice asking about criteria directly and early: 'When you compare options, what will matter most?' and 'Who else will judge this, and what will they look for?' Then practice playing the criteria back in your demo or proposal, in the buyer's own words. A good drill is the final call in a competitive evaluation, where you have to find out how the scoring really works and respond without criticizing the other vendor.