Societal upheaval over the past year has profoundly changed the buyer’s journey. Beyond mandates and restrictions, buyer behavior has been influenced by declining levels of trust in government, institutions, and other people. The result is that buyers have become less trusting and more firmly rooted in their beliefs.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going... working harder and focused on meeting their challenges. The tough ones in our business are those who can convince cautious customers to buy in an exceptionally challenging economic environment.
Value propositions need to be constantly refreshed as customer, competitor, and market dynamics change, which is all the time. Successful, energetic companies embrace this renewal and use it to sustain ongoing profitable growth. Let’s examine more closely why and how to adopt this approach.
Has your organization built its marketing and sales programs around selling your product? Well, here’s a news flash. B2B customers don’t buy features and functions; they buy solutions to their problems. So not only should you be selling your solution, you should also be “selling money.”
What’s your sales strategy for 2021? The global pandemic has wreaked havoc in every business sector and will likely dominate the economy going into next year. And the upcoming presidential election is sure to add more uncertainty. What better time to build a sales strategy that delivers business value?
In pre-pandemic days, sales and marketing efforts focused on enhancing the customer’s total experience (e.g., brand assurance, strategic growth, ESG, responsiveness, and future enablement). But COVID-19 has flipped this paradigm, at least in the short term, as buyers keep retreating to more basic considerations.
In the economic downturn of 2008, Philip Lay, Todd Hewlin, and Geoffrey Moore wrote a thought leadership piece for Harvard Business Review (HBR) entitled, “In a Downturn, Provoke Your Customers.” I give them credit for setting off a chain reaction that we now know as “Selling Insight.”
Buyers go through a natural process when deciding to invest in a technology solution. The most successful sales approaches guide customers through that process quickly, confidently, and collaboratively.
The most successful sales reps focus on understanding the customer's business, especially when it comes to solution selling. These sales reps engage in what some have now dubbed “The Challenger Sale.” But what exactly is it and how does it align with value selling? Let’s take a closer look.
Traditional marketing wisdom tells us that building customer relationships begins with the sales process. Every product, company and industry has its own unique journey, and it’s our job as B2B solution providers to establish trust, credibility and value every step of the way.
