Companies spend huge sums of money on their offerings to establish or maintain competitive advantages. Yet, if they fail to distinguish themselves during the research phase, they may never make buyers’
short lists. During the research phase, buyers want anonymous and credible information (both general and specific to your offerings), without the usual vendor hype.
They want the ability to determine the pace and the level of detail of their evaluations without being “qualified” by your Web site, and they want to decide if and when they are ready to be contacted by a salesperson. Despite the differences that we discussed in the stereo-typical traits of people involved in sales and marketing, sales habits have seeped into most Web sites, probably because the desired out-comes are leads. Corporate cultures lean toward driving top-line revenues by selling, not by empowering buyers to buy. Organizations that fail to change will drift further and further out of alignment with the new breed of buyers.
As soon as buyers feel that they are “being sold,” defensive behav-ior takes over. Have you ever found yourself browsing in a retail store mulling over whether or not to buy a particular item and been asked by a clerk: “May I help you?” How often does that question cause you to move along, ending any possibility of buying that item? So it is with Web sites as well.
We are aware that some companies allow the initial contact with a curious buyer to be someone other than a salesperson. It may be a support or application expert who can better address implementation issues or technical questions. More important, such a person isn’t a commissioned seller that will be trying quickly and overtly to qualify the prospect.
In the same way that superior salespeople differentiate themselves by how they sell (or allow people to buy), company Web sites can do the same. A few questions to consider:
• Is your Web site about your company or about how your clients are using your offerings?
• Do you have a way of assessing the level (executive, middle man-agement, infrastructure, or user) of visitors and aligning with them by providing the type of information they’d like to see?
• Do you offer information (electronic newsletter, Webinars, white papers, or other such data) that provides value to visitors and fos-ters a “sticky” electronic relationship? Are you sure that the visitors value the information? How do you know?
• What conclusions would you like Web site visitors to make about your company, and how are you trying to earn those opinions?
• If someone were to visit your Web site and those of your two major competitors, which buyer experience would stand out? Which com-pany will buyers perceive as most helpful?
Many of these questions relate to the buyer’s experience with your company Web site but, as we described earlier, a buyer will be
exposed to many areas of influence other than your Web site during his research phase. How well are you positioned in those areas? Here are a few more questions for you to ponder:
• How many members of your team (sales, marketing, and execu-tives) are respected bloggers that publish helpful (rather than biased) information?
• Do you have a staff member who is responsible for daily or contin-ually performing complex Web searches to find out what is being said about you and your competitors?
• If you are a salesperson, do you belong to every newsgroup that your buyers are likely to subscribe to so that you can read what is being said? If so, have you positioned yourself as a trusted advisor of information with frequent posts? Do you include your contact information in each post so that a buyer in the research phase can contact you when she finds your posts?
• Has your company attempted to create “independent” Web com-munities (portals) to facilitate an exchange of information about a particular topic (language translation, for example)? Does this por-tal retain its independence and allow discussion about competitors and alternatives? As the portal “sponsor,” have you succeeded in positioning your company as helpful, trustworthy, and the definitive source for information on the topic?
• Do you have basic Google alerts set up to inform you of any news related to areas that you should be interested in (your company, your competitors, key phrases, and so on)?
• Do you survey buyers in your pipeline to find out what they search on in the research phase? Do you use this information to (a) opti-mize key pages on your Web site, (b) buy search placement ads based on these key phrases, and (c) analyze what high-ranking results appear as a result of these search phrases and compare them with your messaging?
This is not meant to be a complete list of questions. Rather, it is meant to get you, and your team, thinking.
Summary
The buying process has changed. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the research phase. Yet, vendors are not helpless. In fact, we believe the changes brought on by technology present an unprecedented opportunity for sellers to take positive action. While it’s easy for buy-ers to find a mountain of information, it’s equally easy for sellbuy-ers to understand what buyers are looking for and to provide that informa-tion in an unbiased, helpful manner. It takes an investment in time and a focus on execution to do so.
If we had to name a single attribute of a superior as compared to an average seller, it would be this: patience. Superior sellers have the patience to ask questions, not discuss offerings too soon, avoid pre-mature price discussions, not close before buyers are ready, and so on. For visitors who are coming to your Web site during the research/nurturing stage, having them feel that your site was patient and helpful would set you apart from most of your competitors, and would make those visitors want to keep coming back. And that’s what you want.
5
S TAGE 3:
PREFERENCES
pref·er·ence [pref-er-uhns, pref-ruhns] (1) that which is pre-ferred; choice; (2) the power or opportunity of choosing one that is preferred
I
f a buyer begins a buying cycle with no knowledge of vendors’products or reputations, then how are buying preferences deter-mined? How has technology supported changes in the way in which preferences are formed? What role does the salesperson play in establishing buyer preferences?
For the moment, let’s assume that the buyer starts a buying cycle with no familiarity with potential vendors, as was the case with the language translation example in Chapter 4. This is an important dis-tinction because of the impact that conscious and subconscious brand awareness has on buyer preferences. Branding is a critically impor-tant strategic objective for businesses, but it is beyond the scope of this book. For this reason, we’ll assume brand equality and that the buyer has no preconceived preferences.
We believe that business buyers are interested in making buying decisions that allow them to visualize doing one of the following:
1. Achieving a goal 2. Solving a problem 3. Satisfying a need
Buyers may not articulate these criteria, but you can be assured that their motivation for buying will fall into one of these categories.
You probably have your own buying experiences that you can com-pare to these categories. Whether it is an expensive car that needs to be rationalized or a goal imposed by the CEO to achieve a certain level of revenue growth, buyers’ decisions are ultimately based on which offering best allows them to visualize achieving a goal, solving a prob-lem, or satisfying a need.