If you’re in Sales, you might feel like a closed sale is harder to get than ever before. But it’s not necessarily your fault. Chances are, the buying group is also complicating things too. They’re getting more diverse, representing more departments and teams than before. They’re getting bigger, having swelled to more than five people. And the bigger the group gets, the lower the likelihood of a purchasing decision.
Yes, the way you sell hasn’t changed that much. But the buying group’s ability to reach an agreement on whether or not to purchase your products or services has.
So it’s “Sales to the rescue.” You have to help the buying group get their bearings straight and reach that blessed harbor of consensus, right? You tailor sales content and pitches to each stakeholder’s individual needs and win over each one by demonstrating that you get their pains and can solve them. Right?
Hold up. As great as sales content personalization is, it can also be a double-edged, consensus-destroying sword if wielded too broadly.
Consider this quote from the CEB blog post, “First, Find a Challenger Customer”:
“Conventional wisdom holds that the more personalized a message is, the more likely a rep is to make a sale. But when individuals in a buying group receive different messages, each one stressing that an offering meets his or her narrow needs, it can highlight the diverging goals and priorities in the group, and hinder consensus.”
It makes sense, right? Why do purchasing decisions become so much less likely in larger buying groups? Partly because the potential for stakeholders’ priorities to misalign is so much greater. This is where Sales can swoop in and save the day.
How? By carefully selecting—or having technology that helps you select and track—sales content (videos, demos, documents) that doesn’t blindly personalize to each stakeholder, but draws their collective attention to the pain points and solutions that each can mutually appreciate.
To learn how Consensus helps to bring buying groups together and builds agreement between them, click the orange “Watch Demo” button below.
