Recent Changes in Buyer Behavior
More Pressure.
If buying is hard on the buyer – imagine what it’s like for a seller. Sellers typically must play catch up when they enter the buyer’s buying journey. The buyer already has formed a hypothesis around a solution. This hypothesis is based on the buyer’s current understanding of the nature and scope of the issue, which may or may not have been accurately diagnosed. Sellers must recognize where the buyer is in their buying journey, how far along the buyer is in their thinking, and what has influenced the thinking to date. On top of that, each stakeholder may be in a different state in the journey. Situational fluency is more important than ever.
To create value, sellers need to bring insight that shapes thinking to ensure that the buyer accurately diagnoses the issue, identifies the best solution, and that the solution plays to the seller’s competitive strengths. This may involve reengineering the buyer’s thinking around their preformed vision of the solution. Typically, a seller spends 15% of the buying cycle on deconflicting and decluttering information the buyer used to come to the preformed solution hypothesis. The co-created vision must be compelling, so that the deal does not end in “no decision.”
Activities need to be repeated as new players and stakeholders emerge. Sellers need to constantly check for changes and be agile in responding. Without a clear line of sight on how to agilely lead the buyer through the complexity, sellers may find themselves in a daily state of crisis – reacting to customer changes and competitor moves as they compete for the business. The result is that the seller is passive and reactive as the customer struggles through the buying journey vs. being proactive, guiding the customer through the journey and driving momentum. Given the level of complexity coupled with high buyer expectations, only those sellers operating at the highest levels of effectiveness and efficiency will prevail.
Build Modern Selling Capabilities.
While buyers are savvy, busy, pressured, risk-averse, and more demanding, they still need guidance to make the best business and personal decisions. Even though customers have unprecedented access to knowledge, they face the difficulty of sorting through what matters most and finding the value among all of the options. More information doesn’t always translate into accurate, clearer understanding; customers still need sellers to accurately diagnose their unique situations and identify the best solutions to make an informed buying decision that drives the results that they need.
To be truly and wholly effective and differentiated in the eyes of today’s buyers, sellers need to create value in the buying experience itself — that means helping customers to better understand the true nature of a business issue and how best to address it. It is not about manipulating or controlling the customer; it’s about building credibility, fostering trust, and creating value for the customer, and, in turn, creating opportunities for you as the seller.
Successful selling strategies today are not achieved through one tactic or approach. Rather, it requires a broad set of selling capabilities that are constantly put into practice and refined.
Build Agility. Drive Continuous Improvement.
To keep pace with changes in buyer behavior and remain ahead of the competition, successful sales organizations must remain agile and strive for continuous improvement, never resting on the previous year or quarter’s success. For the largest global sales organizations, continuous skill-building at scale is not an easy task. Identifying the right skills, the right people, the right sustainment path, and the right metrics to measure takes planning and expertise.
