Customer’s Buying Journey And the corresponding sales process of the seller

The buyer's journey describes the process a typical business buyer takes as they move through the sales funnel. It's their process, not yours.

The journey is not an administrative process, but a cognitive one. The buyer moves from being complacent to troubled, then becomes clear about needs and viable options, before deciding on preferences and opening the way for an acceptable contract.

But the selling process does not - and cannot - precisely follow this path. There are steps the seller must take that are important for the seller that are not part of the buyer's journey. So how do you align these two journeys?

They should follow parallel paths. The key is to walk through the journeys step by step and consider issues in tandem. Start with the buyer's journey and ask yourself at each stage: 'what do we have to do to help buyers move from one stage to the next?'

Consider, too, that as the seller you must do things before the buyer's journey starts, and after it has ended. 

Your execution should focus on the stages of the seller's journey. Your choice of tactics for your business should be those best able to move your buyer through each stage of their journey. 

Consider the following sales process 
which is aligned to the customer's buying journey

1.      Find new names in proven business lists.
and filter them to match your ideal customer profile.

2.      Position your business as a member of the category
by sending potential buyers monthly invitations to house-branded events

3.      Get independent speakers to 'trouble' buyers at events by discussing
real-life examples of businesses that fail to address the problems you solve.

4.      Determine if they are sufficiently troubled
by reviewing responses to your post-seminar surveys.

5.      Tele-market those with the highest scores on our qualification matrix
and pass these names to the sales department only if they “score” well

6.      Get sales people to establish their credentials in face-to-face meetings

7.      explaining measured ROI your customers have gained.

8.      Help the buyer define their needs by conducting a paid-for 'health check',  with an offer of a rebate of fees against future purchases. 

9.      Review the results of the health check with the buyer and 
discuss key contract terms on a 'should we engage' basis to identify show-stoppers.

10.  Propose a solution that directly addresses agreed gaps.
Engage the buyer with confidence in your ability to address these gaps
by taking them on a tour of two existing customers' sites.

11.  Encourage the buyer to select you as a preferred vendor
by conducting a direct competitive comparison against agreed gaps

using third-party data to support your assertions.

12.  Help the buyer to enter into a contract by making the first steps simple and affordable and condition them for future growth through user-group presentations

       highlighting new applications of the technology. 

Remember, your task is not to work buyers through your sales process, but to help them along their buying path. .

How to work out connection architecture

1.     How much individualization and customization is needed

1.1.      In  locating / contacting / accessing stage : Min ¡  Med  ¡ High  ¡ 

1.2.      In  sensing / discovery stage : Min ¡  Med  ¡ High  ¡ 

1.3.      In strategy / Diagnosis and Design stage : Min ¡  Med  ¡ High  ¡ 

1.4.      In making, pre-during-after-selling / fulfillment stage : Min ¡  Med  ¡ High  ¡ 

1.5.      In persuasion / acquisition stage : Min ¡  Med  ¡ High  ¡ 

1.6.      In customer feedback stage Min ¡  Med  ¡ High  ¡ 

2.     The more the individualization and customization is needed …

2.1.       The less needs to be the size of the target audience

2.2.      The higher needs to be Average Order size

2.3.      The higher needs to be the profitability for each order

2.4.      The higher needs to be the close-up visibility of the customer

3.     The factors that determine the task of the connection architecture….

3.1.      If B2B what level of hierarchy the customer units is from

3.1.1.      C suite (Budget Creator ) ( He has many options for spending money on)

3.1.2.      B suite (Policy Creator) ( He can shape the policy in many different ways)

3.1.3.      A suite (Activity Creator) (He can undertake actions )

3.2.      Do  we have a clear idea of the customer’s unstated payoff?

3.2.1.      What does he want to achieve

3.2.2.      What does he need to fix

3.2.3.      What does he want to avoid

3.3.      How many different types of Customer Unit mindsets / behaviors. Which of these are priority personas : ABC analysis

3.4.      For each persona unit, what is the customer’s  buying  journey : Through what stages and sequence the customer wants to go? The more the number of stages, the more is the number and variety of people and time needed. 

3.5.      The sales effort required is higher when

3.5.1.      the category is complex to explain

3.5.2.      the category is unknown

3.5.3.      the need is latent

3.5.4.      the customer will need to make extensive changes to his assets / behaviors

3.6.      Ease of getting / providing access : How to tackle the gatekeepers / barriers

3.7.      Perceived risks and unfamiliarity for each buying persona. The more the risk the more the time, assurance, trust, warranties,  proofs,  testimonials needed

3.8.      What is the selling strategy and organization of competitors

3.9.      How habituated  are the customers to solutions / vendors to buying the category from the current vendors at current specifications because the habits die hard and special efforts are required to break it

3.10.  How experienced are the customers to the category because the inexperienced customers are wary, slow, not trusting, take time and many times they abandon plans

3.11.  How formal / rigid is the buying process of the customer. This decides the extent to which the customer will drive the process. Particularly if they are far bigger .

3.12.  The more educated  / objective the customers are in specifying / checking; the more involvement of technical / back office is needed

3.13.  Size and complexity of Decision Making Unit : More number, more variety, of people and time needed.  The more the complexity, the  more the number and variety of people and more the time needed 

4.     Sales Architecture development

4.1.      BUYING PERSONAS : Identify priority personas and document them

4.2.      BUYING JOURNEY : Develop  for each persona

4.3.      SALES PROCESS : Map your “Sales Process” onto these journeys

4.4.      TOUCH POINTS MATRIX : Create a “Touch Points Matrix” 

4.5.      ENABLEMENT OF EACH TOUCH POINT : Staff, Skills, Script, tools, milestones

4.6.      ORGANIZATION : what positions, designations, Job Descriptions, People Specifications and reporting structure : needed to execute these touch points properly

4.7.      SYSTEMS : Metrics and SOPs for appropriate touch points

4.8.      ORG DEVELOPMENT PLANS : setting goals ,  reviewing, coaching, incentive

8 Different selling models

8 Different Selling Models

1. Traditional Selling – Hard
2. Traditional Selling - Professional
3. Customer Focused Selling
4. SPIN Selling
5. Solution selling
6. Consultative selling ( vis-à-vis transaction selling )
7. Collaborative Selling
8. Strategic Selling

One Line explanation of the above : 

• Traditional selling – driven by the seller’s need to sell based on product features
• Traditional selling – the sellers tries to present in the light of customer needs
• Customer focused selling - first know the need and then suggest
• SPIN selling : ask questions before jumping to solutions
• Solution selling : Deliver improvement based on mutually agreed solution
• Consultative selling : clients buy solutions they have been a party to creating
• Collaborative selling : both act as each other's customers 
• Strategic selling : enterprise to enterprise selling

Traditional Selling - Hard  

is where the sales person is taught to take charge of the selling encounter and maintain control of the conversation from start to finish and persuade the buyer to buy even where the buyer is not in need.

Traditional Selling – Professional   

is where the sales person is taught to build rapport and get the customer into a mood to listen to the sales pitch – during which the salesperson presents his offer in the light of  the needs of the customer so that he is influenced to make a favorable buying decision.

Customer Focused Selling

In today’s crowded market place, marketing efforts have shifted from product marketing to customer-focused marketing model of 3 steps :

Step One--Customer Discovery :  The sales person’s first priority must be to discover the customer’s wants and expectations,  motivations, criteria, and readiness to buy.  Hence the sales presentations can start only when you discover customer needs. 

Step Two--Customer Acquisition : when an agreement has been reached, the acquisition phase of the selling process starts and includes verifying the order, keeping the customer informed,  managing pending orders, ensure smooth implementation, addressing any billing issues or concerns and may involve training, handholding, installation and follow-up.   Electronic industries have recognized that while they make a quality product such as a VCR, customers who are unable to install and use the features of the product complain about the product quality. These same businesses employ people to create user-friendly instructions.

Step Three--Customer After Sale Selling :  Unlike traditional selling models that stop with a customer closing, Customer Focused Selling has a third phase of After Sale Selling. The customer looks for maximum performance from the product.  Most sales people fear this phase of the selling so they skip it.  They are afraid the customer may be disappointed about the performance of the product or upset that promises were not fulfilled.  Rather than face an unhappy customer (there is no money in this), they start selling with new prospects. A selling model which does not include selling after the sale loses sight of the most valuable asset in a business -- the existing customer data base.  Look at these simple facts (a) More than 30% of customers will purchase again (b) Customers know and trust you (c) It’s 10 times cheaper to sell to existing customers than new prospects (d) Repeat buyers are less concerned about price than new prospects. Repeat business--sales after the sale--will only take place if you take care of your customer.  You become an advocate for their business and monitor the use of your products and services.  Customers will buy again and will refer their friends and relatives to the business if you have kept in contact and become a trusted advisor to them. 

SPIN Selling

In successful sales calls it's the buyer who does most of the talking, which means that the salespeople are asking questions. Asking questions means that the salesperson is building Rapport with the buyer, building rapport allows the buyer to feel more comfortable talking. SPIN selling is based on quote that “People do not buy from salespeople who understand their products but from those who seem to understand their problems”.

SPIN is an acronym for a “questioning sequence” and has 4 types of questions :

• Situation ( what is the context of the customer …)  
• Problem ( what are the pains in the current situation ….) It is better to uncover several problems before asking implication questions. It can be dangerous to focus on one problem as it invites the buyer to raise another area where you solution does not fare so well. (Don't put all your eggs in the one basket)
• Implication ( understand what the pain implies ..what effects ?)  are the most powerful sales questions and the skill in using them doesn't automatically improve with experience.
• Need-payoff ( ask about explicit needs …)

SPIN method says there are 4 stages to a sale :

1. Opening
2. Investigating
3. Demonstrating Capability
4. Obtaining Commitment
   

Solution Selling

What is a solution? "It is an answer to a problem". Solution selling is not only giving an answer to the customer’s problem. It is important that the problem needs to be acknowledged by both the buyer and the seller. So a “solution” is a mutually agreed-upon answer to a recognized problem. But then, the solution must also provide measurable improvement on “Before and  After” basis. So the “solution selling” may be defined as a mutually shared answer to a recognized problem that provides measurable improvement. "Solution-Selling" generally apply a consultative sales approach to all aspects of their sales process (during a sales cycle) including:

• Prospecting
• Diagnosing customer needs
• Crafting a potential solution
• Establishing value
• Bargaining for access to decision-makers
• Positioning proof, ROI and the total solution
• Negotiating a win-win solution
• Following up to ensure customer success

Consultative Selling (vs transactional selling)

It describes a selling technique in which the salesperson acts as an expert consultant for his prospect, asking questions to determine the prospect's needs and then using that information to select the best product or service for those needs... ideally, the salesperson's own.

Consultative selling frequently works hand-in-hand with value-added selling, in which a salesperson presents customer-specific benefits related to their product or service. The consultative approach, when properly executed, yields a quantity of information about the prospect's wants and needs – which makes it easy for the salesperson to take the next step and present the perfect benefits for those wants and needs.

Thoroughly qualifying prospects before setting up an appointment is critically important to a consultative approach. If you the salesperson don't know ahead of time that your product will be a good fit for the prospect, you'll end up wasting a long appointment drawing out the prospect only to discover at the end that you can't provide what they need.

A Transaction is a simple short-term sale. The customer already knows what he needs so he is not looking for any product knowledge. Buying criteria usually hinge on price or ease of acquisition and finding a “deal” or “bargain”. The Transactional Shoppers are

• focused only on today’s transaction – no  thought of future purchases
• Their fear is of paying more
• They exhibit comparative shopping behavior
• They do their own research so they won’t need the help of an expert
• Consumer Reports are published primarily for the transactional buyer
• They enjoy the process and hence don’t count the time spent
•  Anxious for “good deals” : they are excellent sources of word-of-mouth advertising.

 A Consultative sale is complex and is a long-term process involving collaboration of both buyer and seller, in which the latter must first develop an understanding of the customer’s business, industry, and needs, and then craft a solution to help the customer achieve their objectives. This is usually service or solution-based.  The Relational Shoppers exhibit different behavior

• they consider today’s transaction to be one in a long series of many future purchases.
• They are looking less for a product than the source from where to buy
• Their fear is of making a poor choice
• Their decision depends on your people, process and proof
• They don’t enjoy the process of shopping and negotiating
• They are  looking principally for an expert they can trust
• They consider their time to be part of the purchase price
• Confident of having found “the right place to buy”, they become repeat customers.

 In consultative selling, the initial focus is on first understanding the deeper needs and buying motives of the customer and then ensuring your product fits with these needs and motives. Given that customers value different things, this approach requires some product diversity but also presents greater upside on the sales front.  However, even consultative selling has a drawback : , when the entire focus is on meeting the needs of the customer, the needs of the supplying organization may suffer. This brings us to  Collaborative Selling.

Collaborative Selling

In a collaborative selling approach, there is a partnering mentality between customer and supplier as both realize that their longer term success is predicated on both of them staying in business - and this means that supplier needs matter too. There may be opportunities where the buyer can be flexible in order to help the seller survive. This could include some flexibility on payment terms, inventory levels, and other items that help the overall bottom line of the seller, without significantly impacting the business of the buyer. In effect, in collaborative selling, both buyer and seller become customers to each other. This approach has three primary goals for both organizations

• minimize short-term risk
• maximize long term gain
• create value by partnering with each other. Creating value is recognizing the natural synergies that already exist and jointly seeking new ways to be innovative and proactive in adding to each partner’s business success.

Not all customers, of course, want to be partners. In fact, for many customers, the current focus on consultative selling (with a focus solely on their needs) works just fine. For these customers, the sales person should continue to do what’s been working well to increase sales - no need to change a winning game!  There are in fact three ingredients that cause both buyer and seller to want to move from a consultative to a collaborative mode, including:

• The two organizations already have a successful and trusting business relationship.
• Each organization needs the other organization to succeed in order for it to succeed.
• There is some element of risk threatening the welfare of one organization that potentially could cause harm to both.

When these three conditions are present, it is in the best interests of both organizations to partner with each other. Given their already trusting relationship, it should be relatively easy for the sales person to articulate the needs for flexibility and joint problem solving on matters that were traditionally the sole concern of one organization, but not both. It is also worth pointing out that the "tables can turn", so partnering can have reciprocal benefits to both organizations. That is, whereas one organization may be struggling today; the other may be struggling tomorrow. Working in a collaborative way builds a spirit of reciprocity that can help both partners as business cycles ebb and flow.

Strategic Selling

Is about organizations selling large and complex offerings to other organizations where approval of multiple stakeholders is needed. This system is about identifying sales opportunities,  identifying all key players in the customer’s organization, understanding each player’s degree of influence and their reasons for buying, and uncovering essential information, to evaluate competitive positions, and address the business and personal motives of each decision maker in the client organization. It gives organizations a common process and language for pursuing sales opportunities and criteria for allocating resources to determine when to walk away from resource-intensive deals with a low probability of success. Participants will learn how to focus time and energy on those opportunities most likely to become profitable, long-term customers.

• Secure approval from multiple decision makers
• Navigate the internal bureaucracy of customers and prospects.
• Gain more visibility into the status of important sales opportunities
• Allocate resources appropriately for large sales
• Improve team collaboration to pursue strategic opportunities
• Forecast revenue with greater accuracy
• Increase close rates for opportunities with long sales cycles

13 sales force indicators that the sales are going to fall soon

1. Increasing trend in Sales Rep vacancies :  Only vacancies due to promotions are good but otherwise they show turnover and difficulties in recruitment. 
2. Decreasing trend in virtual bench quantity and quality :  This is good only if the could only if the people on th bench are taken out and deployed in new territories or to replace retirees otherwise they show increasing attrition and / or Sales Managers being oo busy in on-boarding new recruits and not paying attention to building bench quantity and quality.
3. Increasing trend in Sales Reps being active on LinkedIn - not with prospects or customers :  This means they are trying to become more marketable. Look for updates and network connections. 
4. Decreasing trend in employee satisfaction and increase in employee complaints :  a spike in complaints in periodic engagement survey - particularly in complaints about management and compensation.
5. Recent induction of outsiders in senior sales management (VP) :  The reps may fear that the new managers may start with a "cleaning house" mentality and start bringing in their old colleagues and may leave even before the new leader truly gets started.
6. Decrease in customer satisfaction and increase of customer complaints : Look for spikes in customer dissatisfaction and complaints which happens when Sales Reps are disengaged because they know they are moving on and the new Sales Reps haven't had enough time to resolve those complaints.
7. Recent change to compensationpeople  or sales territories : Newly released compensation plan or territory redesign is a trigger for exodus of talent.  
8. A general decrease in deal quality (deals being sold at very low margin/with high discount) : This indicates Sales Reps going for short-term opportunities to make their numbers and may soon fly to greener pastures especially if changes are made that would disallow this activity.
9. Decreasing trend in CRM activity :  may mean that some Sales Reps don't fear the consequences of not logging in the CRM activity or they don't want to share any of "their" contacts - but take them with them to the competitor.
10. A rash of Sales Reps taking vacations  : Of course, your company's "use it or lose it" vacation policy may create a spike when the deadline comes near but otherwise you may be seeing reps take vacation before they leave. 
11. A new sales channel has been added : If the sales organization has recently added new external channels for sales, your sales reps may not want to tolerate the potential cannibalization of their sales - depending on how the channel is implemented.
12. A general drop in sales rep performance : This could be due to an overall drop in morale or a recently-imposed quota that just isn't realistic. But watch out - it could also be related to a seasonal cycle, a commoditization, a competitor increase of market share, or other reasons that may not indicate attrition issues.
13. Recent introduction of sales-related roles like Inside Sales Rep, Associate Rep, or Lead Development Rep :  Has your company recently implemented new sales roles? New "junior" sales reps and even inside sales reps may encroach on accounts that the legacy sales reps usually handled. This is a threat to potential earnings from a territory, so Reps may decide to leave.  If a Lead Development program has been implemented, the Sales Rep may not want to relinquish the prospecting activities that he or she has become proficient at - and therefore leave for another firm.

The key to improving your sales force productivity

(Hiring the right type of persons is the first key) and providing the right coaching is the second key and in this blog post I am talking about the second key. 

It has been found that ONLY 3+ hours per month of coaching can

• improve quota attainment by 22%
• improve close rate over 14%
• decrease sales rep turnover up to 12%.

I am giving below the 3 Tactics of coaching which are :

1. Grab the moment for coaching as it occurs. Do it without wasting time. A great situation suitable for coaching can happen anywhere, anytime, anyplace.  This informal coaching can be personal or even on telephone. But 89 % of all coaching happens on the job and not in the class room.  
2. Coaching works best when the sales rep trusts you to have his best interest in your heart. You must demonstrate this by pointing out your positive experiences first. Research shows that the brain can listen and accept constructive criticism only when you can establish the ‘trust’ by citing examples of good and positive behavior. The reps' defense  and fear of rejection drop when they actually listen more to the criticism in a constructive manner.  BUT, the positive feedback must be sincere. Telling someone they look good today is not a positive comment.
3. Be as specific as possible and this needs your interacting closely. Example : when you tell someone they need to work on their questioning skills, give a specific example. Otherwise your coaching will remain in the cloud. To make it real and actionable, you must cite specific details of when you OBSERVED this behavior.  Actually coaching requires details. And the more specific, the better. And use reports and aids to help you. Show them how a daily (or some other report) can be used. It is not possible to be specific without seeing, hearing and listening to a sales rep. You need to interact every week with either a field ride to a customer or a one on one meeting.  These are the moments you observe. These are the times when you coach.  And these are the specifics that allow you to provide the feedback necessary to improve results.