So You’ve Built Buying Power and Sent a Demand Signal, Now What?

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• Buying power isn't just about finding buyers

  06:52

  Buying power isn't just about finding buyers. It's about getting three specific things. First, you need buyers who want the same thing . Every buyer has slightly different preferences, different specifications, different features or functionalities they want. The work is getting them aligned around a shared target, specific enough that a supplier knows what to build.

• Why do markets still get stuck even with real demand?

  09:19

  Building, aggregating, and harmonizing demand, often through a buying club, is just the first move. It's not the last one. Because even when you've done all that work, even when the demand is real, even when you've aligned the buyers, markets can still get stuck

• The power of a buying club

  08:46

  Without proof that real buyers with real budgets were in the room, the negotiation would have never happened. And the tool that does all of this is a buying club. I know that sounds a little ridiculous. It sounds like getting discounted mayonnaise at Costco. But in practice, it can be enormously powerful. It takes buyers who are each too small to matter on their own and turns them into something the market has to respond to. CHAI called theirs a buying consortium. Kim Carnahan at the Center for Green Market Activation calls hers a buyer alliance. Rich Powell's organization is literally called the Clean Energy Buyers Association. These are different words but the same concept.