Do you understand your buyers decision-making journey?
Have you mapped the journey to understand the key interactions and other people who might influence the final buying decision?
It’s not always an easy thing to pin down.
In B2B sales you’re usually dealing with repeat customers. So it’s likely you’re dealing with the same people (or a few people) all the time
You get in a groove with them. You have a good relationship with them.
But is that enough?
What can be hidden behind those strong, easy relationships are other people who have an impact on each buying decision.
- The influencer
- The decider
- The approver
- The buyer
- The user
Regardless of which label you give them, there are often other people involved in the internal buying journey. Not only your regular contact person.
In fact research from Gartner highlighted that for many businesses as little as 17% of the buyers total time spent on buying may be spent with vendor representatives. And if they’re speaking with more than one supplier that percentage can drop even further.
So… how do you make an impact on the buyer when you’re only a small part of their buying journey?
✅ Have you identified other parties in the decision-making chain that maybe you could also be speaking to?
✅ Do you need to look deeper, and look wider, within the account to establish more points of contact?
✅ Do you need to consider creating additional digital touch points as well as in-person?
✅ Importantly, how do you position yourself with them as the Trusted Adviser so your input has impact?
Mapping the client journey can identify critical opportunities
By taking time to understand the decision-making process the customer goes through to buy from you (or your competitor) you can position yourself to interact with appropriate people within the decision-making network.
And you can gain a better understanding what they might need from you to help with their decision. That is, what value can you offer them at that point in their buying journey?
And it’s worth remembering that the buying journey could be quite different from one customer to the next. Their staff structure, business operations, decision-making authority, and internal approval process would all have a bearing on how they make buying decisions.
Next steps
As a Sales Leader are you preparing your sales or account management team to explore the customers buying journey and become a Trusted Adviser?
If you’d like to discuss some of the key processes for mapping out your customers buying journey and helping your sales team to make a bigger impact, get in touch for a complimentary exploratory discussion.