If you’re in the B2B services industry and are struggling to close sales, it might be because you are having the right conversation but with the wrong person.
What the heck does that mean?
Let me explain…
We all know B2B growth and sales are different from consumer sales.
To successfully sell, you need to define your customers’ purchasing process, and then adapt your message and conversation to each of the key stages and personalities.
Typically there are three key roles within a business when it comes to purchasing decisions.
- The approver is the decision-maker and is typically accountable for solving the problem your solution delivers – the buck stops with them
- The recommender is responsible for the particular problem that your solution delivers
- And then there is the user of your service
A client I am working with had their focus slightly wrong and this is why they weren’t closing enough deals.
They thought they were doing the right thing by going to the top of the food chain, the owner of their customers business.
They had their pitch down pat, talking about how this solution is much more efficient, drives productivity, making your life easier.
All of which were great features and benefits that you would expect to hear in a pitch however…
This solution was to fix a compliance process and, being blunt here while the business owner is accountable and worried about it, they really didn’t care what ‘spanner’ the team used to fix it.
When we dug deeper into the typical customer profiles what we identified was who they actually need to be having conversations with, is at a recommender level.
Having a conversation at this level we could discuss the features and benefits and the outcomes they can achieve. And then arming them with tools they needed to build a business case to be out of sell to the approver.
In an afternoons workshop, we were able to answer these questions with our client. And with this one small tweak, they have already progressed to getting more proposals in front of the right people, and these will quickly turn into sales.
Are you having the right conversation with the right person for your business?
- Firstly identify who is the user, recommender, and approver.
- Do you know how their purchase decisions are made or what their purchase process is?
- Is your message and pitch aimed at the trigger points for this conversation?
Let me help you make this happen in your business, contact me now.
KS
