B2B Buyers Way Ahead of B2B Sellers

The B2B buyer’s journey has drastically changed with the evolution of digital platforms and B2B sellers need to adapt their selling process and digital strategies to keep up.

The battleground for buyers’ dollars has shifted from cold phone calls, coffee meetings, and conference room sales pitches to online digital platforms. In a time where white collar work is done almost entirely in front of a computer, the balance of power has shifted from vendors to buyers as information has become a free-for-all. Buyers find data on any topic in a few keystrokes, while the criteria for that data being “authoritative” and “trustworthy” evolves. Now, many organizations are changing to incorporate new ways to design their digital platforms and processes to best serve buying habits of today and the future.

In the past, salespeople had better information than their customers. These salespeople knew how to use this knowledge to access decision makers and progress conversations towards a signed contract. To understand bundled features in a used car, number of processor cores in a server processor, or even get specifications of a home to buy, a buyer had to meet with a salesperson to gather everything required to understand a purchase. Customers benefitted from insights provided by a salesperson and could get answers to questions they didn’t think to ask.

Conversely, buying in the past could be a long process, with multiple meetings or follow up calls to get the needed information and complete a signed contract.  Lengthy sales forced customers to depend on a limited number of sales representatives and trust ranked high on the list of buyers purchasing criteria. And unfortunately, there were occasionally bad salespeople that sold some lemons and got away with it.

Many of today’s customers shy away from reliance on a salesperson in favor of open access to information online. Though most buyers realize that information is just as easy to put online as it is for buyers to access (and bad information persists online as well), buyers have most control and are increasingly moving to the online sales channel.

According to Hubspot, the buyer’s journey is boiled down to the following 3 steps:

1. Awareness
2. Consideration
3. Decision

In the past, buyers relied on salespeople through all three phases. A process used to look like this:

1. Awareness: Potential buyer answered his desk phone even though it was a number they didn’t recognize. An engaging Sales Representative was on the line with a really informative message about “x product”. The product sounded interesting enough to schedule an in- person meeting orand demo.
2. Consideration: Buyer shared the conversation with a few colleagues and connected the dots that x product would probably simplify x process at his company. The BuyerHe comes prepared with questions and a ballpark idea of what it should cost, or what he the buyer can afford. An in- person meeting and pitch then proceeded with the same pitch deck that the sales representative presented to every client. The Sales Representative’s solution seemed to be valuable to the Buyer’s organization. Pricing was discussed and it was 25% higher than was expected. Buyer concluded the meeting asking for time to think about it.
3. Decision: Buyer performed a quick online or phone book search for competitive solutions. Buyer next contacted the competitors and asks for pricing in order to make a comparison, but is told that they must meet with a sales rep for a demo and overview. Buyer ultimately decided not to have to sit through multiple additional meetings in order to get competitive pricing. The original Sales Representative called back to followed up weekly for the next month and the Buyer agreed to purchase the solution even though it’s 25% higher than what had been budgeted.

The majority of the actions in that anecdote were spurred by the sales representative, from beginning to end. The salesperson’s ability to make verbal arguments on the spot and follow up are key drivers of the close. Salespeople were prized for their charm, ability to think on their feet, and diligence in follow-up.

Today’s buyers are able to go much further in the process with information and tools available online and without contacting a sales representative. A sample purchase today could look like this:

1. Awareness: After several weeks of frustration around a process at her job, a Buyer takes it upon herself to find a solution. Through some fruitful online searches she is able to quickly find solutions in many forms, custom built options and pre-built products. The Buyer makes a list in a shareable document and shares with her team. Her team members suggest other criteria that the Buyer should consider and also add some other solutions to consider. The list of possible solutions quickly becomes unwieldy.
2. Consideration: In order to narrow down the list, the Buyer spends time looking at helpful forums where individuals voice their opinions on solutions they’ve used. Gartner and Forrester are consulted for head to- head comparisons of the technologies. The Buyer spends time on a handful of vendor websites reading whitepapers, viewing video demonstrations, and reading up about the expertise of the vendor teams. One vendor has a trial version of the product and the Buyer spends time looking through the feature set after downloading it. After some triangulation of positive data points about these vendors between multiple sources, the buyer narrows her list down to five potential partners that could help fix the broken process. The Buyer designs a set of questions and required information to gather from these partners. With this preparation in hand the buyer requests that her vendors complete this questionnaire in order to do a head- to- head comparison.
3. Decision: The Buyer studies the vendors’ responses and compares the prices head to head. Some vendors are then given a chance to present their proposals in person. There are a few questions sent back and for and the proposals are refined. The final vendor is selected and the deal is negotiated to close. In this process, the Buyer received enough data to feel like they chose the best solution.

With so much additional information available to buyers online, the sale proceeds very differently. The buyer finds the need, the handful of potential solutions, and drives the conversation on their own timetable. Of course, the RFP has been around for a long time, but buyers can break the rigidity of old RFP process and engage the sellers at the buyer’s convenience. This can actually be a better sales experience for both seller and buyer if both are on the same page.

A strong digital analytics strategy and understanding of psychographic personas can provide great insight into what those engagement points might be. Information has to be tailored and created with the goal of informing the consumer. Buyers know when they are being sold to and will resist being pushed too hard in any direction, rather they like to feel they are discovering the best solutions on their own.

Periodic, scheduled, and generic marketing campaigns are no longer sufficient. Marketing campaigns need to transition to always-on automated marketing campaigns that meet the consumers where they are in context of their own buying journey.

To continually adapt to changing buying processes, organizations must utilize the vast amount of customer data at their disposal to gain a 360 degree view and be ready to quickly adapt. Data for many organizations is siloed and hard to access across the organization. It should be centralized and easily accessible to knowledge workers at your company. There is also a huge amount of unstructured data hidden in scanned documents, comments on the website, and a multitude of other places.  Companies are starting to invest in tools for search and visualization for unstructured data, but they are slow to get into the hands of the salespeople.

Accordingly, in any interaction with potential customers, websites and mobile apps must be designed to accommodate new processes and engage at the right moments in the buyer’s journey. The digital experience should of course be smooth and aesthetically pleasing but always recommend next best action for the client to encourage progression through their awareness, consideration and decision.

All of the factors above equal great opportunity for organizations that are willing to invest in great user experience for an evolving relationship between B2B buyers and sellers. For more information on how we’ve helped our partners adapt, visit us at punchkick.com