Have You Ever Brought a Buyer to Tears? – Segment #10

Jeff here with today’s 2 minute tip from PublishorPerish.FM for marketing-minded sales leaders and sales-minded marketing leaders where we focus on two things – productivity and making an impact.

I just have to say that I was watching “Terms of Endearment” and it made me think of something. Have you ever observed a sales process that brought the buyer to tears because of the rigor and soul focus that the sales person had on driving the sales process?

A question I have for you that I’d love to hear from you – I’d love to hear you debate and hear your comments and your perspectives. The question is:

“Are we coaching too much on the sales process and driving that rigor, and not enough on the buyer’s process? Are we really thinking in terms of the buyer and of the buyer’s mindset?”

The classic sales process is that I start with a lead, and then I’m opening up a prospect, I go to engaged, consult, negotiate and win. With this approach, you are driving the sales process and looking to advance the buyer through the stages of the process. This approach is driven by sales; it is all a sales process and the buyer is complying with the sales process.

Alternatively, I wonder if any of you are coaching and really setting up your process on the buying pipeline? So instead of talking about lead and prospect, are they really just in status quo mode? Do they know if they have a problem, first. Secondly, once you’ve piqued their interest on something they may have a problem with, are they researching solutions, and are they considering solutions, and are they finally ready to commit to a solution and then buy?

So thinking about the buying process possibly, and getting into the minds of the buyer, really has a couple of positive implications when we are coaching our sales teams.

1. If you think about the buying process it becomes very clear on what content is required to educate and advance the buyer down the funnel. Of course use different content in the upper part of the funnel, educational content, insightful content than you do in the lower funnel, which is much more focused on driving the sale or transaction.

2. Thinking about when to teach and when to sell, it also becomes very apparent, similar to the content you use, the style and approach you use;  consider the approach when you’re in the upper funnel of the buying process vs the lower stages.

3. Lastly, as far as the judgement required, sales processes and the sales pipeline and the steps in the pipeline (the progression), is the judgement of the sales person of where they put the buyer. So this is different than a buyer-driven process. It’s pretty clear the steps that the buyer has taken to advance the discussion, so it takes a fair amount of the judgement out of the process on sales and puts it as truly an evaluation of the buyer and where they are.

Just food for thought; would love your perspective.

That’s your 2 minute PublishorPerish.FM tip for the day.

As always, I want you to think like a marketer and sell like an animal.

 

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