What are the things that you should know about the buyer?
- B2B buyers are usually teams
- Help your buyers with this two-step process
There are numerous sales enablement tools available all over the Internet. Many companies have continually provided their prospects with many tools, practices, and advice on how to enhance their sales. Little do they realize that sales are just half of the whole equation. Where there’s a seller, there will always be a buyer, and at the end of the day, it’s the buyer that has the final say.
“Today’s B2B buying decisions are not being made by a single person; they involve multiple individuals from different departments with different responsibilities. It’s essentially a ‘buying committee,’ and you must engage and convince each of the buyers why they should work with you throughout every stage of the sales funnel,” says Rishi Dave, CMO of Dun & Bradstreet.
With that being said, most of the time you’ll be working with a first-time buyer group wherein most of the individuals will have little to no experience when it comes to the decision-making processes of purchasing groups! With that in mind, it’s very important to have an understanding of the nature of the B2B buyers. This way, you have the power to not only focus on enhancing your sales through enablement software, but also to educate and guide your buyers every step of the way!
B2B Buyers Are Usually Teams
As global competition ramps up, the number of people involved in most B2B purchasing decisions has increased as well. As stated in a 2015 CEB report, there is an average of 5.4 individuals involved in every B2B buying decision and every one of them has a different perspective on what needs to be purchased and why. This can be attributed to the different departments the individuals are from or the different aspects of the business they are in charge of. Either way, these people would usually have different, sometimes clashing ideas on what to buy and what to ignore. This is something that needs to be addressed before a decision can be agreed upon.
Consequently, your job as a B2B sales professional is to engage each member of a buying team. Reach out to them based on their specific pain points, take note of their preferences, and make sure that you identify patterns and similarities in thinking. Some members may instinctively opt for the lowest cost option or one that maintains the status quo. Your goal is to build a consensus within the buying team that shows them a comprehensive solution that works best for the entire business.
Help Your Buyers with this Two-Step Process
Professionals in the field of B2B sales and marketing have identified two steps that are proven to be valuable in approaching and converting the members of a buying team. Although not foolproof, this process assures a smooth way of slowly convincing a buyer team from within — something that you must aim to do!
- Find a champion. In almost every buyer group, there will always be that one person who will wholeheartedly buy into whatever you’re selling. Make sure that you enlist their help right away! They will be your champion in propagating your message. Their influence can be the decisive factor in the team’s final decision to purchase your solution! Once you’ve identified the most likely candidate, take some time to provide them with the information that they need to educate their colleagues about the value that your product is going to offer. Keep in mind that a voice from within the company is more likely to convince the group compared to a seller from the outside.
- Remove existing dysfunction with collective learning. Now that you have your champion, structure team conversations around seeking collective support where each member sees and agrees with the value to the others as well as to the specific department. These conversations reduce the opportunity for conflicting opinions to sidetrack the purchase by focusing on the product’s benefit to the entire company, not each department. You can also make use of the similarities in thinking and other logical patterns that you may find in your prior meetings with them. That way, you can steer the discussion along with your champion to the path in which the buyer group will eventually end up deciding on purchasing your solution!
Key Takeaway
Selling to a team means helping each member overcome individual preferences in favor of furthering the collective whole. That way a company will decide on purchasing a solution as one whole unit, preventing any kind of integral negativity from influencing the minds of the rest of the business! In addition to using the right sales enablement software, you also need to properly guide your buyers!
At Consensus, our buyer enablement tools help you identify who to talk to and when so that you can equip your buyers with the correct information through sales enablement software that they need to close on your deal as quickly as possible.
