Change is ubiquitous: weather changes, technology changes, mood changes, taste changes, style changes… there are really too many changes occurring everyday to even think about listing. So why is it that most CEO’s think their buyer profiles and patterns never change?
Articles and presentations on the “consumerization of B2B” combined with the tracking of longer sales cycles and the introduction of seemingly non-competitors into your sales cycle should be the wake-up call of the most important change of all: buyer profiles. That’s riiiiiight; your buyer isn’t approaching the classic BANT (Budget, Authority, Needs, Time) equation the same way they did a year ago. According to a recent Sales Force Effectiveness blog titled “How Giving Money To Your CMO Will Save Your 2013”, authored by Tony Albachiara:
“FACT: CEO’s/CFO’s do not know and understand the dramatic shift in buyer behavior that has transpired over the last 12 months.”
The blog goes on to say, “The fact of the matter is that buyer behavior has changed so much in the past 1-2 years that now the buyer is performing 50% (or more) of the Buyer’s Journey on their own. As a result, your well-funded sales team won’t even touch them until they’re already halfway home. If that’s the case, who is responsible for making sure that the potential Buyers make their way through the funnel? The answer: Marketing.”
This is the reality of the comsumerization of business to business. Buyers are now applying the same techniques for their consumer purchases to their business purchases. Which is to say they start everything with an internet search, followed by investigating what their peers and other consumers are saying (blogs, tweets, facebook likes, pinterist, linkedin groups,…). Gone are the days when the average enterprise executive looks forward to the vendor sales call for the latest on technology, market and trend information. Most field sales organizations aren’t equipped with the most current information as the time it takes to generate those materials usually obsolete them in the process. So, we have to rely on real-time changes to awareness vehicles driven by marketing to stay in front of the buyers as their behavior continues to shift to self satisfaction of their “buyer’s journey.”
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