Rethinking the B2B value exchange process

There has been considerable focus on being buyer centric in selling in the past few years. I have had the opportunity, (thanks to my podcasts Bits About Books, The Buyer Side Chat and other interviews I conducted on the B2B Sales Conversion issue) – to speak with several thought leaders who have been flagging the shift in buyer behaviour. ?In this context the 2019 spaghetti bowl graphic shared by Gartner on their report on the? “New B2B Buying Journey and its Implications“ is widely read and referred along side a bunch of reports by top research and consulting firms .

All in all, for more close to two decades the buyer behaviour has shifted due to easier access to information (as a direct result of the disintermediation and easy accesibilty of information) and the fact that the sales teams of vendors are not the only channel or source of information anymore. While this is the reality, the focus of the sales organization and the salespeople to close a deal at a time and place that matters to them (the sales side) has not changed.

Unfortunately, we are still not reading the room.?

At PitchLink, have been rethinking the value exchange model that we currently employ and the lens through which we look at the process itself.?

The sales funnel – the linear journey (despite the Gartner research that categorically demolished the myth of the linear buying journey in 2019 backed by their research data) etc. and our effort to wrap our existing process in a “buyer friendly” packaging, it is mostly the old wine in new bottle. I am yet to see sales leaders talk openly about the increasing in-effectivity of cold outreach - for instance.

We will delve into this very interesting race in a future piece – how cold outreach – mail and calls – have become mostly annoyance, low performing and the cat and mouse game that is going on between the large ESPs, Telcos and Regulators on one side and the mail/call delivery technology companies and experts on the other.

The fact is, although technology has enabled scale of outreach via mass mailing and robocalling - the results are consistently in a downward spiral. We are trying to solve the lower efficacy with higher volume enabled by technology.

We need to rethink this strategy.

What is surprising is that the voice of the buyer is missing completely from all the discourse. It is mostly sales consultants, trainers and technology providers who are battling it out with opposing opinions and exchanges. The need to get the buyer into this discourse is critical, and as long as we are unable to do so - we are all going to work with 2nd or 3rd party data. The problem with that is, it is likely to be both biased and tainted.

There is a lot that we need to rethink.

Recoginsing why buying is a more complex process (than simply arriving at a decision to buy) could be a starting point. For the seller the deal (mostly) closes with the close. For the buyer it is but the first step towards the definite outcomes that necessitated the purchase. The stakes are always a lot higher for the buyer – for the decision maker, those who signed off on the purchase, the one who authorized the payment to those who are now responsible to ensure the outcome. Because the buyer’s business is dependent on the actual delivery of the desired outcome. And that is the crux of the shift.

It is neither selling nor buying that requires our attention. But the ability to guarantee the Desired Outcome from any given transaction.

?