10 years ago, the Corporate Executive Board completed extensive research into Buyer and Sales rep behaviour and found that almost 60% of the purchase process had concluded by the time the buyer invited the seller into pitch.
Today, according to Forrester, the purchase decision is between 70-90% concluded by the time a buyer invites a seller or supplier to pitch. Let’s explore some of the reasons why?
According to Gartner, 83% of buyers want a rep free experience, why? Because as little as 23% believe they have received a quality experience from a seller. Most surveyed said they received a poor quality experience from sellers. However, 79% of buyers want the ability to ask a human questions.
Alarmingly, the average time afforded to sellers in the purchase process is 17%, which means if 3 or 4 suppliers are involved, you have less than 5% of the purchase process to influence the decision. Most buyers have done their research, online, speaking to peers and others familiar with forming a short list of suppliers ideal to solving the pre-defined problem, and the they already have a feeling of who they want to work with, before an evaluation cycle is run.
So how do you ensure you’re in early or better still, have built a relationship with your potential buyers, before a purchase cycle is run?
On the 15th November 2022 the worlds population is on track to hit 8Bn. And 62.5% are online. 93% of those online are on social. Whether you like it or not your target market is on social.
The challenge most business have when it comes to social media is they’re either doing one of two things:
- Social Media Marketing - running social media marketing campaigns or sharing corporate content on their company profile page.
- Selling on Social - sharing brochures or getting teams to repost corporate content or like company posts.
The problem with this approach is, it doesn’t work!
Companies and the people within them lack a new set of skills the modern business needs to survive. The ability to walk digital corridors effectively. People buy from people and personality trumps brand - when it comes to selling your product or services people buy from those they know and trust.
Which is why the following skills are required for businesses to be successful in 2023 and beyond.
- Personal Brand; By now you are likely to have developed your work and personal persona on social networks. Developing your professional personal brand to support your career objectives will be key to your success in 2023. Building a full and fruitful profile across all digital assets your customers, prospects and partners spend time on, telling the story that demonstrates you are an expert in your field and lead them to the conclusion you want them to, will be critical to your digital success going forward.
- Network Growth; Like most, you have probably grown your network over time, with no real strategy or sense of purpose, which is okay. Going forward it will be necessary to define your social strategy and grow your network with purpose and your commercial objectives in mind. That is, if you want to achieve your growth objectives. Whether you’re in sales, marketing, customer success or any other revenue or growth focused team, connecting with new and relevant people on a daily basis must be a strategic priority.
- Content Creator; There’s only one way to activate your network. Create content that makes you look different, like an expert, like someone that can help your audience. You’re doing the work on your personal brand and connecting with new people in the accounts that matter, now create content that increases your visibility with those people.
- Engage; There are sets of behaviours within your control on socials, in fact there are 26 different behaviours you can do to activate your network. 1) Engage with those that engage with your content, it doesn’t take much to say thank you to those dropping likes and comments on your content. You’ll be amazed at how many new conversations you get into. I created 156 new Busines calls in 12 months following this exact approach. 2) Engage with your target accounts. Identify the stakeholders you want to engage with and make yourself visible by engaging with their content, liking and dropping smart comments or questions to encourage a dialogue.
Four areas you can make a start with on your journey to learning how to walk digital corridors effectively. If you would like a copy of the 26 behaviours you can follow, drop me a DM. I’m happy to share the list.
I provide Social Interaction & Influence training and coaching to teams who want to learn how to walk digital corridors safely and to consistently develop new relationships that lead to conversations that will support almost any growth objective, whether it’s;
- Marketing - Visibility, Awareness, PR or Pipeline
- Sales - Build consensus, shorten sales cycle, increase AOV or Revenue
- Talent - Attracting or Qualifying top talent brave enough to succeed with social influence.
- Executives - Raising capital, PR or winning strategic deals
Whatever the discipline, whatever the role you hold within your organisation, you will need to hire for talent that is brave enough to open new doors safely on socials.
I have developed a three-step approach so that our clients can qualify this modern skill-set effectively, ensuring your organisation can walk into digital corridors with confidence. The approach consists of;
1). Digital Scorecard
- review the digital profiles of your candidate short-list and score them based on evidence they are capable of walking digital corridors effectively.
2).Questionnaire & Interview - design a bespoke questionnaire that draws out examples of where the candidate has developed their personal brand, used content to promote themselves as a trusted advisor and what they plan to do in their new role to ensure their audience reaches the conclusion needed, to increase the probability of success.
3). Report
- based on the results of the scorecard and questionnaire & interview process, prepare a report with recommendations on how likely the short list of candidates are to be successful walking digital corridors for your organisation.
Supero are a B2B Sales Consultancy focused on driving growth for businesses within the MarTech ecosystem. If any of the content in this article has sparked interest, I’d welcome grabbing a virtual coffee and exploring how we might help each other.
Drop me a DM on LinkedIn, Twitter @Alex_Supero or Guild, or a WhatsApp if you prefer +44 7951 220113
#B2BSales#DigitalSelling #ValueSelling #WalkingDigitalCorridors
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