Addressing the SME Challenge in Embracing Digital Transformation

Rewind any further than a decade or so, and the ability to build personal relationships ? was probably the most important skill for a salesperson, and a company’s ability to grow. It’s what many businesses exclusively used to build their business.? ?

Now, although we’re not denying it’s still an important part of the B2B sales process (and a ham-fisted sales attempt can still derail a sale), in the past decade or so the dominance of the internet and all things digital has significantly reduced the influence of a single individual, no matter how skilled they may be. And as we all know by now, the pandemic simply put this trend on steroids.?

Many businesses that used to thrive in the B2B sales environment, are struggling to adapt – and suffering stagnation as a result.?

In this article we’ll give you an overview of what’s changed and what you can do about it.?

The two biggest changes in the B2B Sales Process?

1. The growth of pre-purchase online research and the “death” of the sales meeting?

61% of all transactions start online, and buyers are 57% of the way through the process before they even meet a salesperson.??

– Accenture Insights study?

Where previously a salesperson would track down a prospect and meet to educate them on the benefits of their product, the situation has flipped almost 180 degrees. Most prospects now do their own product research, weigh up their options and only then contact the business to ask a few well-informed questions, or simply to negotiate price.??

A big factor driving this is of course as time goes by, more and more B2B buyers are digital natives, in fact sixty-four percent of today’s business buyers were born after 1980 according to Forrester’s most recent Buyers’ Journey Survey and by 2025 they will be 75% of the total workforce. They naturally reach for their phone or laptop whenever they need anything. It’s a classic case of needing to adapt to a changing market.?

2. The importance of being found, looking great, and a willingness to share like never before

The rise of digital pre-purchase research, of course, means you need to be found when people are looking. Google figured out long ago that sites offering better quality information would give searchers more value, and so they created and algorithm that rewards such sites by listing them first in search results. (Happy searchers = more users = more advertisers = more revenue for Google). A whole industry appeared – Search Engine Optimisation or SEO for short – to help businesses comply with Google’s wishes, but the purposes of this article all you need to know about this is the main SEO tool is quality information, or content as we marketers call it.?

80% of B2B buyers have a shortlist before they even ? ? start researching, and 90% will buy from that initial list.??

– Bain & Co.?

Because potential buyers are looking for it and Google rewards it, it’s imperative to generate and distribute content for your prospects to read, view and listen to because if you’re not out there (digitally) informing, educating and impressing prospects with a great website and prolific articles, videos, white papers and case studies that offer genuine value to them, then someone else will be, and that’s where the sale will go. So, it better be good!?

Quality content doesn’t simply mean it’s well put together; however, it also means going into greater depth than you’ve ever done before, except, perhaps, in the middle of a sales meeting with a prospect. The difference now, is that ‘meeting’ is happening online without you ever knowing it, so you might have to share IP that you previously kept close to your chest.??

Some business owners get a little uncomfortable about sharing so much, so freely to strangers, however every single time we’ve worked with an organisation to overcome this and reveal ‘enough but not too much’, it has paid dividends in the end.?

The internet always promised “the democratisation on information” – well here it is, embrace it.?

More Changes in the B2B Sales Process?

1. More stakeholders, more people to persuade? The number of stakeholders involved in the decision-making process has also increased considerably in the last ten years, often from different departments too.?

The typical buying group for a complex B2B solution involves 6 to 10 people? each armed with four or five pieces of information they have gathered independently.??

– Gartner.co.uk

And whilst you might have looked to the CEO to make the decision, these days it goes further down the ladder; in its major Path to Purchase study, Google found that 81% of non-C-Suite employees have influence over purchasing decisions.??

So, unless you refine your targeting, the messaging, pain points and communication channels you might have used in the past, are not quite doing the trick anymore.??

All of this has made the B2B sales process more complicated, and as a result, the decision-making process is a lot more drawn out.?