Value is in the eye of the beholder

Although not stated explicitly, it is essential that marketers define the value proposition with the target audience’s perspective in mind–and that the content directly contributes to the delivery of that value proposition.

While these points may seem obvious, there are many websites that start by describing what makes the company unique without making the connection to the value their target audience seeks to derive.   The content of these websites, when they highly optimized for search engines, attract attention but  fail to convert prospects into repeat visitors or customers.

Start with deep customer insights

The implied “step zero” of Kristin’s process is gaining deep insights into the “who”, “what”, “when” , “where” and “how” of your prospects’ buying process.  Do this  by developing detailed buyer personae of your most promising prospects–and the individuals they involve in the buying process. It is this knowledge that enables development of compelling value propositions–and “remarkable content”.

Create content that addresses needs on multiple dimensions

Content is only remarkable when it squarely addresses content consumers’ needs and preferences.  In addition to speaking to their most pressing concerns, what makes this content remarkable is that it appears where intended audiences look for it–and in the form they prefer to get it.

Engage with frequent and consistent communications

When their requirements are met, audiences find the content so remarkable they come back for more, they share it with their friends.  It is this process that ultimately induces them to engage with the individuals and companies that produce it.  So, when executing the 6 steps that Kristin recommends, also make it a goal for each of your communications to contribute to the delivery of the value that your products and services will ultimately provide to your most promising prospects.

Tailor communications for each audience and buying stage

Here are two examples that pertain directly to the medical device companies attending the upcoming meeting.  To reach patients, especially at the early stages of their “buying process”, medical device companies may want to deliver content via health education websites, in addition to their own.  To address physicians’ needs, nearing the end of their “buying process”,  these same companies may want to create instructional videos that demonstrate how to use these devices in their practices.

Tools and tips for value creation

Need help getting started with your own marketing efforts?  Use the value proposition formula to help you develop marketing messages that capture attention and compel action.   Then, read this post for ideas about how you can discover the  content that captures attention.   Then, before you post, double check to ensure that everything you’re about to publish is tightly integrated with the value your best prospects seek to obtain.

Related posts:

1. Shortening the sales cycle starts with getting into buyers’ minds

Learn from the past, capitalize on success

At the end of 2008, in Shorten the sales cycle next year:  Year end marketing planning, I advocated taking stock of what worked and what didn’t—so that you can capitalize on your successes and avoid repeating what turned out to be mistakes.   In particular, I suggested focusing on buyers’ perceptions in four areas: the desirability of the solutions, the reputation of the vendor, the effectiveness of the communications, and the responsiveness of the individuals leading the sales or business development effort.

Sales enablement software prods companies to focus on customers’ buying process

Two years later, few companies do the kind of structured analysis I recommended on an ongoing basis.  Yet, prodded by their acquisition of sales enablement software, many more companies are beginning down this path.

They’re developing buyer personas (based on past experiences) and mapping their best customers’ buying processes to identify points where they can influence the ultimate outcome of the sale. So, we’re making progress.

Product teams incorporate customer feedback throughout the development process

On the product development front, product teams are increasingly using a process called “customer development” that calls for learning and iterating rather than linear execution.  This methodology, introduced by Steve Blank in the Four Steps to the Epiphany, and popularized by Eric Ries among others, advocates using minimally viable products (prototypes) to gather customer feedback throughout the development process.  This methodology also requires developers to validate the product market fit–before they launch new products–by finding early customers who will pay for the product under development.

Strategy trumps tactics

Last year, I questioned the seeming emphasis on demand generation and lead gen–at the expense of longer term strategic investments.  At the time, the economy was at its worst and  a lot of companies felt they couldn’t afford to invest in gaining deep customer insights.

Today, with increasing competition, many realize they can’t afford not to invest in learning about their best prospects’ buying processes.  Moreover, automation has dramatically reduced the cost of gaining deep customers insights.  No longer do companies need to invest a lot of money in travel or convening a group of users at a common location to get deep customer insights.  In fact, they have lots of relatively inexpensive options for doing so:  social media, online communities, web analytics, online marketing research, and online usability tests to name a few.

Automation prompts strategic thinking–and makes it affordable

Each of these avenues is:

• relatively inexpensive to administer (the bits travel, the administrators stay put),

• offers greater reach and access than more traditional research methods (anyone with an Internet connection can participate), and is

• more usable (automated tools for compiling and analyzing the data each creates are now accessible the non-statistician).

In fact, one of the experts I interviewed for a blog post, pointed out that digital marketing, by making it so easy to relate behavior to outcomes, has opened the door to strategy.

Customer research has crossed the chasm

I ended last year by asking, “Will 2010 be the year of the customer?”.   Twelve months later, I think it’s safe to say that we’ve crossed the chasm–and that we’re definitely marching in that direction.

Too bad I couldn’t locate that crystal ball.  I’m wondering what the future holds….

Related posts:

1. What are your marketing priorities for 2010?
2. The future of marketing will be all about customer data
3. Inbound marketing starts with deep customer insights
4. Price or customer experience–which matters more?

According to Marketo’s Andrew Spoeth, the average B2B buyer receives 20+ campaign touches per week. What this means is that prospects will only pay attention to that information they deem highly relevant to their situations.

Know  prospects’ priorities

If we want to capture prospects’ attention, engage their interest, and ultimately win their business we need to speak directly to our prospects’ highest priorities.  What that means is that we need a way of determining what these highest priorities are.

There are many ways to find out. Examples include social listening, reading analyst reports, or querying our sales forces.

Go to the source

Nevertheless, I’ve found that the best way to find out what prospects will find most relevant is to ask recent prospects. After all, they’ve just gone through the entire buying process–and likely still remember what information they were seeking at each stage.

Best of all, each of these accounts was a highly qualified buyer for our products or services. Else, we wouldn’t have spent valuable sales time with them.

Perform win loss post mortems

In a clever post yesterday, Jeff Henning made a similar point. He observed that while losing a customer is painful, failing to learn anything from that loss is even worse.

Nevertheless, few capitalize on the opportunity to perform win loss post mortems. In fact, Pragmatic Marketing, a company that trains product managers and product marketing managers on best practices, found that less than 25% of the population they surveyed engages in this process.

Cindy Alvarez, a strong advocate for customer feedback offered a number of reasons why companies rarely solicit feedback in her post The Real Reason Companies Avoid Feedback. Whatever the reason, my advice to companies that want to develop relevant content is, “Get over it”.

The new win loss analysis looks nothing like it did in the past

In a follow up post, I’ll describe how to get the customer feedback you require to develop relevant content. While, I recommend win loss post mortems, these are not your forebears’ win loss reports.

Those analyses started with the point the prospect first connected with Sales. Today, sales comes late to the party so we need to start much earlier.

Ready to start?  Download 5 actions you can take to generate more sales-ready leads.

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1. Content that captures attention

I found her post timely.  I’ve been struggling with articulating the very concepts that she relayed so fluently as I revise own website.

Shorter sales cycles depend on deep customer insights

Like Laura, it’s been my observation that B2B marketers often fail to clearly define who their most promising prospects are–and what matters most to them.  Yet, until they gain deep insights into who decision makers involve in the buying process, what each stakeholder needs to recommend a solution, and how they need to get it–for it to be useful–sales cycles will continue to stretch out.

I have several theories about why many B2B marketers, especially those in high tech marketing and professional services marketing, don’t delve deep into understanding prospects’ buying processes.  I think one reason is that many have come up the ranks. Having started in other roles, such as engineering, marketing, or administration,  many have never had formal training in segmenting markets or profiling prospects or the customer research it takes to understand buying criteria and preferences.

Another reason is that, until recently, B2B marketers haven’t had access to a lot of behavioral data from which they could draw inferences.  This is changing some with the advent of web analytics which provide some insights into buyer behavior.  Nevertheless, there’s still a need,  not just for market research, but also prospect and customer research.

Web analytics help, but direct conversations with customers and prospects are still essential

Web analytics can tell you who came to your site and what they did once they got there.  It’s less useful for figuring out whether you’re reaching your best prospects or helping you determine the factors that trigger a need for your solutions or create a sense of urgency about acting.  It’s hard to get that information without direct conversations with customers, prospective customers, and those who have decided not to buy from you.

Prospect and customer research takes time

That said, in many businesses, no one has the time to get the deep insights it takes to drive sales.  The product managers often report up through Engineering and are under pressure to get products to market.  Although they are usually responsible for identifying customer requirements, their schedules typically don’t permit  them to perform a lot of customer and prospect research outside of what they learn while doing sales support or attending user groups.

The product marketing managers, who are often charged with understanding customer needs, are also responsible for product-related communications and sales support.  Under pressure to support Sales with marketing collateral, training, and lead generation campaigns, they too tend to sacrifice strategic activities to produce the more tangible deliverables others expect them to deliver.

Often, everyone assumes that the company knows enough to move forward–and they end up missing the mark.  Other times, however, product managers and product marketers recognize they need to understand more about those who will buy and use the company’s products– they just don’t have time to do it all.

Fresh perspectives  and marketing systems can add focus and speed the process

At BB Marketing Plus, we work with companies to fill the gap.  Sometimes it’s just a matter of offering a fresh perspective about what it takes to attract better business and increase revenues.

More often, we help companies organize what they know, figure out what they still need to find out, help them get the necessary information, and use that knowledge to help them make the most of their opportunities.  Once we’ve established a framework–and helped them put marketing systems and marketing processes in place–it’s much easier for them to gather relevant data and and make effective use of it, on an ongoing basis.

How does your business get the deep customers insights it takes to drive sales?  Do you know how to use it make the most of your opportunities?  How do you track success?

Related posts:

1. Digital marketing: How B2B marketers can use it to improve their performance against goals
2. Customer research makes gains in 2010
3. The future of marketing will be all about customer data

To address her concern, I immediately donned my strategic marketing hat.  Some would say that when you have a hammer, everything is a nail…

Helping prospects recognize they need what you have to offer

My first observation was that the prospects probably didn’t recognize how much they might benefit from the program (the second of nine potential obstacles to a sale).  Else, they would have expressed more interest in similar programs. This could have been for any of the following reasons.

They may not have recognized that:

• They have the problem the solution purports to addresses–or believe their current solution is adequate,
• The solution is relevant to their situation
• The source of the solution was credible and/or
• The proffered solution would resolve the problem,

We approached these reservations one at a time.  First, we determined that it was likely that many of the small business owners did not already have a solution for “reaping the benefits of a diverse workforce”.

We based this assumption on the fact that most companies hire “people like them”, and most business owners tend to turn to their peers for advice.  We believed that the target audience would agree with our conclusion. So, we looked for ways to persuade them that the program would be relevant.

Stepping into prospective buyers’ shoes

To do so, we tried to step into their shoes.

To anticipate their concerns, we asked ourselves two questions.  The first was, “What might come to prospects’ minds when they thought about diversity?”.  Then, we asked, “What was most important to them right now?”

We guessed that most people think of diversity in terms of differences in race, sex, age, or national origin.  Yet, the term has broader implications.  It can also refer to a host of other populations that share common circumstances that differ from our own.

We anticipated that what would make the program relevant to a group of small business owners was examples of how a “diverse workforce” would significantly affect the success of their businesses.  Luckily, we had recently encountered a few great examples.

Buying from those we know and trust may not always be the best approach: a personal example

Recently, I decided to migrate my website to a modern platform–and began looking for potential vendors .  Some of the “usual suspects”, recommended by my colleagues, prepared proposals that addressed a number of my stated  requirements such as maintaining the “look and feel” of my current site.  Nevertheless, a number offered alternative designs despite the fact that I had indicated this was neither a need or a preference.

That said, at the heart of my requirements was a need for strategic guidance.  I indicated this by stressing the importance of ease of maintenance and ease of upgrading the site–to accommodate future unknown requirements.

I began to fully recognize my need for strategic guidance,  when the bids that came in had little in common.  At that point, I began to search the web and social media for resolution to the disparities.

My research surfaced only one company that focused on strategic issues–and provided numerous examples of its capabilities in this area–and that company was located overseas.  Given the sample size, I’m not sure if this company had a different perspective because it was located in another country or if this was an individual difference. Nevertheless, it was interesting to me that no US firm popped up in the couple hours I spent searching the web and social media.

Credible sources help raise awareness of value:  additional examples

There are more influential sources that we could draw on to demonstrate relevance. One is Jeff Howe, the author of the bestseller Crowdsourcing.  He  notes (on page 152 of his book) that it  takes a diverse group to devise innovative approaches to challenging problems.

Another came from panelists at last week’s conference on the future of marketing. In discussing what it takes to develop successful products, they advocated building cross-functional teams composed of marketers, developers, and designers.

Their rationale was that when professionals work in functional silos, they tend to approach problems in much the same way they did in the past. They noted that companies only come up with market-disrupting solutions when employees work in teams that can view situations from multiple angles.

Strategic marketing is a never-ending process

I felt we had come up with some great ideas for helping prospective attendees recognize how they would benefit from the program.  At the core, was demonstrating how diversity can help companies achieve competitive advantage.

Now, “all” that was required was to summarize the above “arguments” in concise compelling copy and move to the third of nine potential obstacles to a sale–creating the sense of urgency that would render our prospects “ready to buy”.

Whether you’re a small business or a strategic marketing consultant, assemble a diverse team

What struck me as ironic, when considering all of the above, is that the very reason we often don’t recognize the need for products and services–that might benefit us–is that these products and services are a) unfamiliar,  b) don’t seem relevant because we don’t have examples of how people like us have benefited from them and/or c) are not recommended by the people “like us” that we know and trust.  Perhaps we need to involve a more diverse team in our buying process.

Related posts:

1. Professional organizations: How do they fit into your marketing strategy?
2. Internet Marketing Tips: A Marketing Consultant’s Perspective

More than win or lose–it’s how you play the game

The goal is not so much as to see what cost the game, but to note specific behaviors that contributed to the win or loss—at crucial points in the competition. Only that way, can they reduce future vulnerabilities and replicate success.

Will deeper scrutiny increase sales?

Similarly, businesses that have Six Sigma programs fine-tune their manufacturing operations to weed out errors and reduce expense. Even health care organizations have begun to study what works and what doesn’t to isolate opportunities to save lives and delay the progression of disease. That said, relatively few companies have dedicated the same scrutiny to determining what it would take to accelerate revenues. Those that do tend to focus on sales performance—and reasons for wins and losses.

Shorter sales cycles are like base hits

In our experience, the real opportunity is shaving time off the sales cycle—rather than just improving the close ratio. It’s not uncommon for companies that sell professional services and other complex solutions to experience six to nine month sales cycles—with each extra month delaying recognition of tens of thousands of dollars of revenue. And the opportunity for delays is abundant.

Eliminate sales obstacles to speed the sale

If you look at the typical buying process: there are at least four major stages: awareness, interest, evaluation, selection. Each of these stages contains multiple hurdles as evaluators gather the information they require to minimize risk and assure themselves that sellers will deliver the promised benefits.

Each of these hurdles can add weeks or months to the sales cycle. For example, with everyone’s busy schedules just checking references can postpone a sale by several weeks.

Web 2.0 reduces control over the sales process

Identifying potential delays is a major challenge. In the old days, the salesperson controlled most of the sales process and could often provide valuable insights into what worked and what didn’t—if he or she had the time to debrief managers at the home office. In today’s Web 2.0 Internet world, however, influencing the outcome—and even finding out what happened is more difficult than ever before.

Social media means sales comes late to the party

In many cases, the deal may be mostly done, before the buyer ever contacts the company. First, stakeholders may research options on the web, learn more about various products on the vendors’ websites, form their impressions of the company by postings in the blogosphere, and even contact current customers directly for references–after finding their names in press releases or company case studies.

In some cases, companies can gather information about prospective buyers—and their intentions—by monitoring website activity. In other cases, buyers build their impressions based on interactions with their party sources—and sellers have no visibility into what transpired or the impact.

Deep insights drive sales

So, what’s a seller to do? Unlike at sports events, you can’t watch an instant replay. Sometimes the only option is to interview prospective buyers directly. Those that do can then find out who was involved in the buying process, how they gathered information, what impressions they formed of the company and its competition, and what caused them to move forward—at every stage of the buying process.

Actions speak louder than words

Although dialogue doesn’t offer the same fidelity as a video camera, an experienced interviewer can often find out what happened at every stage of the process. Because humans have limited awareness of their own motivations, this focus on behaviors and actions, is far more useful than buyers’ insights as to what factors affected the final outcome.

Base hits add up to runs scored

Once sellers have the play-by-play information in hand, much like the sports teams we discussed earlier, they can reduce vulnerabilities and replicate successes. And by improving their strategies, tactics, and execution at every stage in the process, they’ll almost certainly shave time off the sales process—and they may even close more deals.

No related posts.

Capitalize on success, avoid repeating mistakes

As the year ends, it can be helpful to take stock of what worked and what didn’t—so that you can capitalize on your successes and avoid repeating what turned out to be mistakes. Our clients find that one of the best ways to do this is to go straight to the horse’s mouth—the customers that bought and those that didn’t.

Make the most of your sales and marketing investments

Interestingly, despite the fact that many businesses invest a lot of time and money in getting new clients, relatively few have a structured process for going back to find out why they won when they won—and why they lost when they lost. Of those who do, many are surprised to find out that the reasons were not always what they suspected.

Forget your sales process, get into your buyer’s mind

As we’ve discussed in previous posts, your prospects’ buying process often starts months before your sales cycle. So step one is mapping their buying process so that you can later identify points where you could intervene more effectively to elevate your organization above the competition. For example, if you can find out what circumstances caused prospects to search for a solution in the first place, you may be able to source more buyers, just by looking for others in those same circumstances.

Nevertheless, the circumstances themselves may not be obvious. Although you may think that a prospect engaged one of your competitors to handle a recent acquisition, you may be surprised to learn that the prospect actually began sourcing a solution provider a year earlier when their own competitor launched a product that their own product line lacked. If that’s the case, then it may not be fruitful to focus on companies that have announced their attentions to acquire another company. Instead you may want to pursue companies whose competitors have recently made major announcements.

What do prospective buyers’ really care about?

When we perform win/loss analyses for our clients, we concentrate on buyers’ perceptions in four areas: the desirability of the solutions, the reputation of the vendor, the effectiveness of the communications, and the responsiveness of the individuals leading the sales or business development effort. In each case, our goal is to learn what factors were most important to the buyer and how our client’s company performed relative to the competition.

What really worked? What needs to change?

Rather than seeking to find out whether their performance was better or worse, we look for differences in our clients’, or the competition’s, performance that may have affected the outcome of the sale. Sometimes finding out why you won can be as, or more, useful than finding out why you lost. For example, the insights you gain may cause you to reinforce a particular marketing message. Or, they may drive you to reallocate your sales and marketing resources for greater impact.

Win or lose, relationships matter

So, as you’re closing the books on this year, ask yourselves whether you know for certain what to do differently next year. If not, it’s worth it to find out. Best case, next year will be more profitable. Worst case, the prospects in whom you’ve invested so much time will see how much you care about doing your best—and may be more likely to buy from you (again) next time!

Related posts:

1. Shorten the sales cycle: one marketing message at a time
2. How search and social media will shorten the B2B sales cycle.
3. Shortening the sales cycle starts with getting into buyers’ minds
4. Maximizing Sales Productivity Depends on Meeting Marketing Requirements

First impressions count, but don’t do the job

When it comes to others, we only form a general impression. At this point, despite the fact that you may have told them much more, prospective buyers are likely to remember only one thing about you at best. It may the first thing you said; it may be something they heard about from someone else; or it may be the thing that resonated most with their top concern the day they encountered your company. Whatever it is, they need to know a lot more before they buy.

The problem is that prospective buyers are still too busy to learn about your company and its services. In fact, one of the greatest obstacles to a sale is getting your marketing messages through to the intended audience. Hopefully, you’ve made enough of an impression, to elevate your company’s marketing communications above the clutter. If so, your next challenge is staying in touch so that you can help prospective buyers move through their buying process. Any missteps and they’re likely to buy from someone else.

Brand building one step at a time

Before they ultimately buy, decision makers will need to:
• Become aware of all the services you offer
• Associate their needs with these services
• Think of your business as the “obvious” choice
• Remember your company when it comes time to buy

The best way to move prospective buyers through these steps is sequentially: one message per communication. Again, they don’t have the capacity to take in more than one detail about your company at a time.

Email marketing may be the answer

One of the best vehicles for your “drip” campaign is a newsletter—conventional or email depending on your audience. Nevertheless, each communication must be directly relevant to their concerns; else it too will remain unopened.

So, in preparing the subject lines and headlines of your missives, return to the four marketing questions we discussed last week. To increase the relevance to readers, and memorability, consider adding a story that illustrates your point and resonates with what you’ve learned about their experiences. Examples of how your accounts have triumphed using your solutions is often the best way to advance your agenda.

A typical email newsletter might describe a service you offer, provide a case study of how one of your accounts benefited from its application, and appear under a headline mentioning both the company that deployed the solution and the impact it had on their business.

Assuming that the featured business is in the same industry—and has the same issues—as your reader, your readers will be anxious to read all about it so that they, too, can achieve success. The following newsletter will follow a similar format but for a different service. One communication at a time, you’ll ensure that prospective buyers:
• Become aware of all the services you offer
• Associate their needs with these services
• Think of your business as the “obvious” choice
• Remember your company when it comes time to buy
For an example of how to implement this strategy, see this article on clinician marketing. As a bonus, you may be able to apply some of the techniques I’ve described to help your physician clients market their practices.

A drip campaign can shorten the sales cycle

So how does a drip campaign shorten the sales cycle? Although your target audience may contain thousands of people, only a few of them are ready at any point in time to buy. Moreover, even if you had the staff, it would be very expensive to follow up with them individually on a regular basis. Done well, your newsletter is likely to reach a small percentage of your audience just as they are ready to buy. If these companies contact you, you’ve generated a qualified lead—and reached someone who is ready to buy right away–without investing in expensive one-to-one prospecting or in manually helping them through their buying process.

Using an email newsletter or conventional print newsletter serves a second purpose. It serves to brand your company as a helpful and authoritative resource. Even if these companies go out to bid, your organization will stand above the crowd. You may even be able to bypass the time-consuming due diligence that companies use to evaluate prospective providers—because they already feel confident in your ability to deliver.

Related posts:

1. Shorten the sales cycle next year: Year end marketing planning
2. Shortening the sales cycle starts with getting into buyers’ minds
3. How search and social media will shorten the B2B sales cycle.
4. Maximizing Sales Productivity Depends on Meeting Marketing Requirements

The higher the risk, the longer the sales cycle…

For low risk, inexpensive purchases like a candy bar, buyers whip through all nine steps in a matter of seconds. When it comes to major purchases, the buying process often takes months and sometimes years. For example, think back to the time it took your own business to decide to put up—or even redo—your website…

Let’s walk through the buying process to begin to understand some of the circumstances that cause sales cycles to stretch out, beginning with the first row of the chart (although in practice the second or third row may happen first).

Only those that have a need will purchase

The first box is labeled HAVE NEED. That’s because no one will buy from you unless they need what you have to offer. Nevertheless, most businesses waste resources promoting solutions to unqualified prospects–those that don’t need what they have to offer and therefore will never buy. For example, my small business sometimes gets sales calls from companies that sell products and services that only make sense for much larger companies.

But first they must recognize that the need exists

The next box is labeled RECOGNIZE NEED. How many of you know of companies that would be much better off if they purchased from you—but they’re continuing to do business in the same way they’ve always done? Chances are if they stopped to consider the real costs of inertia, they’d behave differently–but in the meantime sales cycles stretch out.

Take for example, some of the taxpayers that use the post office to submit their taxes. Many are aware that they qualify for free filing and have computers—but they continue to post their returns via US mail.

Although some subset of these individuals has well thought out concerns about filing over the Internet, most have just never stopped to really examine the pros and cons. In fact, they probably would have filed their returns electronically if they had only learned of the option when they were less busy—or realized in advance just how long they would have to wait in line on April 15 to obtain proof that they had mailed their documents in on time. Nevertheless, they didn’t; so the IRS will have to wait at least another year to consummate the sale.

Then, it generally takes a sense of urgency to generate demand

The third box is labeled READY TO BUY. Many buyers not only need a particular solution; they are aware that they should take action. Nevertheless, they delay buying because the urgent takes precedence over the important. In fact, it’s not uncommon for other initiatives to continue to take priority until the need becomes truly pressing.

To sum up, getting the sale depends on finding prospective buyer that need what you have to offer.  Nevertheless, need is a necessary but not sufficient condition.  Prospective buyers must realize what they’re missing by delaying a purchase and develop a sense of urgency about filling the gap.

Next week, we’ll proceed to row two of the buying process chart and discuss three more factors that can cause sales cycles to stretch out.

Related posts:

1. Maximizing Sales Productivity Depends on Meeting Marketing Requirements
2. Shortening the sales cycle starts with getting into buyers’ minds

Step one is recognizing that for the most part, we can’t convince anyone to buy something from us that they don’t want. When it comes to shortening the sales cycle—as with other forms of behavior change, the thing to remember is that it’s all about attraction and motivation—rather than persuasion and pursuit.

Purchasers decide what they want to buy and equally important how they prefer to buy it. All we can do is make it easy for them to buy from us.

The key to success is anticipating prospective buyers’ needs and then making sure you give them exactly what they want, when they want it, how they want it—before they ask. When we neglect to first understand how our clients prefer to buy, we run the risk of failing to make the necessary connection and causing sales cycles to stretch out. Let’s look at a few examples.

Suppose prospective buyers need a written understanding of what you will deliver, and you don’t have it. Sales cycles will stretch out while you prepare the necessary documents. If they require certain payment terms, and you can’t provide them, the sale stalls until you obtain authorization to give them what they want—or worse, you may end up losing the deal. If they depend on their trusted advisors for recommendations and these advisors aren’t familiar with your business, you’ll need to wait while they perform due diligence, or more likely, miss out on the opportunity altogether.

The better you understand prospective clients’ buying behavior, the greater is your ability to anticipate obstacles, and then take action to shorten the sales cycle. In short, upfront marketing research pays. More about that in a later post.

Related posts:

1. Accelerate revenues, reduce the cost of sales, and boost profitability
2. Shorten the sales cycle: one marketing message at a time
3. Maximizing Sales Productivity Depends on Meeting Marketing Requirements
4. How search and social media will shorten the B2B sales cycle.