A Fresh Look at Millennial B2B Buyers

There seemed to be a view in the B2B world that Millennials don't exist.

But let us look around us, Millennials are very where and making decisions as well as influencing decisions.

One of the common objections we get is that "my client isn't on social".  Really? 

If we look at Simon Kemp's Q4 Digital Snapshot 

https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2019-q4-global-digital-statshot

There are 3.75 Billion people in the world active on social media.  Your staff are on it, your alumni are on it and your future employees are on it.

So while, the "decision maker" isn't on social, (or active on social) his or her team will be.

"My clients are not on social" can only be said by today by the very, very naive and I can assure you that you are leaving money on the table.

Gartner (what was CEB) state that the average B2B sale involves 10 stakeholders, to say that all of them are not on social, shows a total lack of understanding on how the world works today. 

As a sales person, when a client makes a decision, we know we have to have been in front of all the decision makers and pressed our case so they vote for us.  But with 10 stakeholders in the decision, plus additional users in the decision, plus change makers (people without authority, but influence), plus independent third parties, non executive directors (NEDS) ... how will you get around them all and build relationships with them?

Cold calling isn't fit for purpose, it's old, inefficient, ineffective, pisses people off and does not scale.  Plus Millennials don't use the phone!

As a business, you have to assume that the people making decision are  Millennials and your sales and marketing activity must be Millenial based.

Let's not forget that that the oldest Millennial is now 30!

Sales is about building high performance teams and these team today use social to drive their prospecting and speed the sales cycle.