The Complex Sale and Buyer Enablement
A complex sale exists when a number of people (a buying group) must give their approval or input before the sale is commenced.
Buyer Types
We recommend thinking about the buying group as consisting of four distinct buyer types each playing a unique role within the buying process:
Economic Buyer
The person who has the ability to commit funds to a purchase. They can say ‘yes’ when everybody else says ‘no’ and say ‘no’ when everybody else says ‘yes’. They will often times delegate buying authority for purchases under a set dollar amount.
User Buyer
The person(s) who will actually make use of your solution after the purchase decision is made. They are usually not the Economic Buyer. They are seeking to make sure the product or service meets critical business and technical specifications.
Technical Buyer
The person who makes sure that all purchasing rules (e.g., RFI/RFP, competitive bids, terms and conditions, etc.) defined in corporate governance procedures are followed. These buyers typically are purchasing managers.
Coach or Champion
This person is someone who wants your solution to win. They could be any of the three buyer types listed above or not directly involved in the purchase decision. They provide you with insight into the buying process and the people involved.
Note: There is only one Economic Buyer, however, there can be more or more User Buyers or Technical Buyers. If a Coach/Champion has not been identified, one needs to be groomed or developed.
Buyer Enablement
While marketers and salespeople have traditionally focused on sales methodologies, tools and processes to help themselves, buyer enablement shifts the focus to:
Building an understanding of the buying process itself, the stages in the buying process, the customer jobs within each stage of the buyer journey
Identifying how every individual you interface with during the buying process maps to the four different buyer types (economic, user, technical, coach/champion)
Helping each different buyer type find the information most important to themselves based upon their unique perspective, business priorities, success factors, decision criteria, and potential barriers/concerns
Creating content necessary to inform each stage of the buying process; content that is relevant, easy to read and understand, useful to making progress, and credible
Helping the buying group achieve consensus at each stage of the buying process: problem to be solved, solution alternatives worth exploring, most critical business and technical requirements, and supplier of choice (your company)
Helping your coach/champion successfully advise, present and sell internally; getting alignment and buy-in across the buying group
By putting more emphasis on the buyer’s journey, companies are being rewarded with more customers, higher conversion rates and shorter sales cycles
The B2B Workshop Series
Buyer Insights, Buying Process, and Value Proposition
B2B Buyer Insights Workshop
B2B Buying Process Workshop
B2B Value Proposition Workshop
B2B Buyer Insights Workshop
FIVE CORE BUYER INSIGHTS
Source: Buyer Persona Institute
After this workshop, You’ll walk away Understanding how to:
Begin to evaluate your sales process based upon how companies buy (rather than how you sell).
Quickly align your marketing and sales teams on who the buyer is, what’s most important to them, and how to better engage them during each stage of the buying process.
Identify opportunities to make the buying process easier and more effective; facilitate consensus within the buying group.
Shorten sales cycles, winning more deals based upon improved understanding of the buying process.
+ Click to find out what we cover in the workshop:
- Educating on the Five Rings of Buyer Insights™ framework
- Mapping buyer/department roles to each buyer type
Group exercises focused on defining the following insights for each buyer type:
- Priority Initiatives
- Success Factors
- Decision Criteria
- Perceived Barriers
- The Buying Process
Shareouts by Buyer Type from each Team
- Synthesizing core themes across buyer types
- Presenting and discussing findings from the workshop
+ Click to find out why this is important:
B2B buyer personas have traditionally been simply demographic or psychographic profiles (providing limited value).
Buyer insights driven personas better inform how to engage with each buyer type throughout the buying process.
These buyer insights will help you qualify as well as work the deal.
They will help you understand each buyer types role within the buying process and the resources that most influence them.
They will help you in working with the coach/champion in reaching consensus within the buying group.
+ Click to see Workshop Details:
- Pre-workshop: Two days of planning and preparation activities
- Workshop:
- 12 to 16 participants
- ½-day virtual workshop
- Post-workshop: Two days of synthesizing activities
- Findings Report
B2B BUYING PROCESS WORKSHOPEnabling the buying process
The B2B Buying Process Workshop is designed to help you breakdown the buying process by stage, asking the question of how do we make it easier and more satisfying to buy from us as opposed to selling to them.
Enabling the buying process
According to recent studies regarding the modern buying process, your sales representatives have roughly between 5% to 15% of a customer’s time (more limited when competing against multiple suppliers) during their b2b buying journey.
Therefore, it’s critical that sales representatives have a deep understanding of the activities within the six highlighted “jobs” that a customer must complete to their satisfaction during the buying process.
After this workshop, You’ll walk away Understanding how to:
Identify opportunities to engage earlier in the buying process. To help align all members of the buying group on the most critical problems to get solved.
Identify opportunities to add value throughout the buying process; enable the buying group to make forward progress quicker.
Understand how the content we create serves (or doesn’t) the needs of each buyer type based upon their role within the buying process.
Shorten sales cycles and closing more deals based upon an improved understanding of the buying process.
+ Click to find out what we cover in the workshop
- Educating on the b2b buyer journey and the four stages within the buying process:
- Inventorying the buyers jobs-to-be-done at each stage of the buying process.
Assessing the buyer jobs-to-be-done within each stage of the journey:
- Problem identification
- Solution exploration
- Requirements building
- Supplier selection
Identifying opportunities (pains/gains) to improve the buyer experience and buying process
- Shareouts by Buyer Type from each Team
- Synthesizing core themes across each stage of the buying process
- Presenting and discussing findings from the workshop
+ Click to learn why this is important:
- Selling is hard, buying is even harder.
- Empathizing with buyers on what it takes to make progress within the buying process is often critical to getting the sale.
- Buyers are spending more and more of the buying process online and not interfacing with your sales team directly.
- Organizations need to create new methods of engaging with buyers outside of sales calls to help them make progress.
- Empowering your coach/champion with the necessary information to drive buying group consensus critical to being the supplier of choice.
+ Click to see Workshop Details:
- Pre-workshop: Two days of planning and preparation activities
- Workshop:
- 12 to 16 participants
- ½-day virtual workshop
- Post-workshop: Four days of synthesizing activities
- Findings Report
B2B Value Proposition Workshop
Identifying your B2B value proposition
After this workshop, You’ll walk away Understanding how to:
Identify your company's unique value proposition beyond the table stakes of doing business.
Align marketing, sales, product, and services teams on the B2B value proposition.
Understand how to incorporate your value proposition into every aspect of how you do business and engage with your customers.
Increase customer satisfaction, retention, and loyalty due to more consistent delivery of value (across elements).
+ Click to find out what we be cover in the workshop
- Educating on the B2B Elements of Value™ and determining your value proposition
- Defining each element of value within the context of your specific business model
Group exercises focused on defining the ways in which each value proposition is realized:
- Table stakes
- Economic/Performance value
- Ease of Doing Business value
- Individual value
- Inspirational value
Shareouts by Value Proposition from each Team
- Assessing opportunities (pains/gains) to improve realization of desired value proposition
- Mapping the B2B Value Proposition opportunities to each stage of the buyer journey
+ Click to learn why it is important:
- Creating differentiation in a crowded marketplace is more important than ever
- Customer decisions are based upon a combination of both objective and subjective criteria
- Ease of doing business becoming more critical in relationship to both acquisition and retention
- Delivering value across multi-dimensions critical to building strong business relationships
+ Click to see Workshop Details:
- Pre-workshop: Two days of planning and preparation activities
- Workshop:
- 12 to 16 participants
- ½-day virtual workshop
- Post-workshop: Four days of synthesizing activities
- Findings Report
Client Testimonials
what our clients have to say
“Defining the buying process and thinking through all of the different buyer jobs helped us understand where we had opportunities across marketing and sales to better enable the buying process for highly complex energy deals.”
“This was the first time we had thought through exactly what our value proposition was at each stage of the buyer journey from the buying stage to on-going customer relationship management.”
B2B Workshop Series Recap
Buyer Insights, Buying Process, and Value Proposition
B2B Buyer Insights Workshop
Designed to help align your marketing and sales team on five core insights to understand for each buyer type (economic, user, technical, coach/champion) within the buying group.
- Prep: 2 days
- Workshop: ½ day; 12 to 16 participants
- Post: 4 days
Total Fees $6,000
B2B Buying Process Workshop
Designed to help you breakdown the buying process by stage, asking the question of how do we make it easier and more satisfying to buy from us as opposed to selling to them.
- Prep: 2 days
- Workshop: ½ day; 12 to 16 participants
- Post: 4 days
Total Fees $6,000
B2B Value Proposition Workshop
Designed to help align your brand, marketing, sales, and services teams on opportunities to improve delivery and realization of different elements of value (table stakes, functional, ease of doing business, individual, and aspirational).
- Prep: 2 days
- Workshop: ½ day; 12 to 16 participants
- Post: 4 days