Hypothetically speaking, if your customers had to pay less at the door to do business with you, doesn’t it stand to reason they might be willing to pay more for your products and services at the check out? If they suffered less pain during the entire sales process, would they be more likely to come back? A new study affirms, B2B buyers are not telling us how they really feel. Ignoring potential sales problems are tantamount to a ticking time bomb.
If you have a sales force this message is for you. If you don’t have a sales force, this message is for you as well. B2B buyers are looking for price plus value, no question. But as I discussed in my last post “Step back, find your way to greater value,” buyer sacrifice (what they have to give up to get the benefit or value) is fifty percent of the equation. What is worse, much of the perceived sacrifice is expended during the sales process alone—unnecessarily! In this post of Material Insights we look at how to lessen the aggravation customers believe they endure in order to get the goods and services they’re buying. A study reveals 2 specific habits that may be driving your customers away.
Some things you can control, others you cannot.
Every business has to keep sales front and center. But even if you do that well, you’re never completely immune to all the bumps and the slumps over time. There are numerous forces at work. Challenging market conditions including new competition, new technical alternatives, eroding margins, long sales cycles and, on the far end, sliding consumer confidence. These are all real threats that can wreak havoc on your business. In a recent McKinsey & Company (MC) article, “The basics of business-to-business sales success,” the authors* show, in one of their surveys, a huge gap between what customers say is important to them versus what actually drove their purchasing behavior in the end.
“Customers insisted price was the dominant factor that influenced their opinion of a supplier’s performance and, as a result, their purchasing decisions.” Yet when the researchers examined what actually determined how customers rated a vendor’s overall sales performance, the most important factors were 1) product/service features and 2) the overall sales experience. Based on the survey results, ”The upside of getting these two elements right is significant.”
Note, the McKinsey survey queried more than 1,200 purchasing decision makers in small, medium, and large companies throughout the United States and Western Europe—no problem. However the study focused on buyers seeking “high-tech products and services” which, I understand, may differ from that of your target market. Nonetheless, the MC authors believe the insights were consistent across simple to complex products and “apply readily to most business-to-business (B2B) industries.” So even though the sample is skewed to the high-tech, I think we can use these findings to safely guide our own examination of these potential sales hazards.
Here’s what you can do.
As you know, there are many opportunities to flub up an otherwise productive and uneventful sales experience. But in the study, 2 bad sales habits accounted for more than half of the behavior customers described as “most destructive.” They were:
- lack of adequate knowledge and,
- contacting customers too frequently.
Buyers are more knowledgeable from the get-go, rarely have they not done their homework (think Internet) and rarely do they come without prior experience purchasing very similar orders. Add to that the value of their time and you can easily appreciate how valuable this insight is. Customers want fewer, more honest, and more meaningful interactions. The good news is you have the control to fix bad sales habits. Here are some considerations:
- Review your compensation practices. Do you somehow reward sales people for hovering too much, smothering your customers?
- When you elevate a sales person to “manage the account” do they have enough to do without preying on your customers?
- Do they have adequate experience and product/service knowledge?
- Do they walk and talk your brand offering consistent messages and compelling value propositions?
- Do they present themselves at peer level? Well groomed, rested and always prepared.
“Striking the right balance between contacting customers too much and too little requires understanding their stated and actual needs” the MC authors assert.
In sales your most important job is listening. You don’t have to have all the answers; you’re better off having a short list of good questions. Remember that buyers will come prepared but may hold back a bit. They are not necessarily inclined to spend the time to tell you all that they might know. Hopefully they answered most of their answers on your website.
Let me know your thoughts, what has been your experience?
* McKinsey & Company, Nate Boaz, John Murnane and Kevin Nuffer authors “The basics of business-to-business sales success”