Most, but surprisingly not all, B2B sales organizations follow some sort of sales process. And much has been written about the buying process used by our customers (more recently referred to as the buyer’s journey) and aligning the two. But are they really even two separate things?
The answer is yes, at least the way we tend to think about them. We bring our needs as sellers to the interaction and the buyer brings theirs. Of course they’re different. We’re on “different sides of the table” right? But if we think of them together, holistically, might the concept of a unified engagement process emerge?
After all, our sales process serves one basic purpose: sell our product or service to help a buyer eliminate a problem or achieve a goal. And the buyer’s objective is similar (if they’re really serious and not just fishing): purchase a product or service that helps them eliminate a problem or achieve a goal. We’re both trying to get the customer from point A (current situation) to point B (improved situation). The problem is we understandably tend to view things from opposite perspectives. So how do we bring them together into one view?
Let’s start with the buying process. If it’s truly a journey, then buyers need a map (for all but the most straightforward purchases). But many buyers don’t have a map for this journey. Or they have one, but it may not be the most effective or efficient to get them where they want to go. It may not even be complete; they haven’t thought of everything. The problem is they probably don’t know it. That’s where we can help and provide real value.
Thinking of both the buying process and sales process as a single project is a good place to start. Project management concepts can help identify all important activities (selling and buying from start to finish), people involved and critical deadlines. [Read David Brock’s important post on project management and sales.] If we think of the sales and buying processes as one project, it starts with our engagement with a customer and ends with their successful implementation and use of our product or service.
It helps to tackle this from two angles: back-to-front and front-to-back. Let’s look at each.
- Back-to-front – When does the customer need your product or service operational in their business? Not just purchased, but up and running. Is the date really critical? What are the consequences of missing this deadline? Once you arrive at a realistic date, you can then back into the activities and deadlines in their purchasing and implementation processes to agree on a date by which an order must be placed. As an aside, this can greatly improve forecasting accuracy!
- Front-to-back – Given the date you engage with the customer, you now have a window of time in which you and the customer must complete the necessary steps to arrive at an order. These are the things we typically consider in our sales process. But rather than being secretive, what if we were more transparent? For most sellers this is a missed opportunity. Some may even consider it heresy! But I believe there is benefit, for the seller and the buyer, to lay out the stages right up front, using words that make sense to the buyer (i.e. not “sales speak”). After all, we know what has led to success for us and our current customers, the buyer probably does not. And whether or not they agree to follow our proven path to mutual success is a strong indicator of their real interest in doing business with us.
We might open the conversation about the front-to-back view like this (stealing a concept from James Muir’s excellent book The Perfect Close): “Our clients find it’s best when we first work together to arrive at a common understanding of your challenges and our potential fit to see if it makes sense to continue talking, then get input from others who might have a stake in this decision; from there I’ll develop a preliminary solution and review it with you and the others, then I’ll create and present a final proposal to the team, and once we’re all in complete agreement we can move it through your contracting and purchasing processes. Does that make sense to you?” [If these steps look like important parts of our sales process, they are.]
If the customer agrees, then we can plug in the necessary activities, commitments and deadlines to align the “front-to-back” element with the “back-to-front”. If we can’t make them line up, it’s better to know early and agree on adjustments rather than going along uninformed then be surprised by a disconnect later on.
If the customer won’t agree, we should consider whether they’re really interested in doing business with us. After all, these are common sense steps that are in the customer’s best interest as well as ours. We might choose to walk away and spend our time with other prospects with whom we can align. Or we might consider alternative suggestions by the customer as long as they help both of us achieve our desired outcomes. Either way, we align on a single process that meets both our needs!
To execute this approach effectively we must be both collaborative and assertive (they’re not mutually exclusive), taking the lead to guide the customer through their journey and provide value to them beyond the benefits of our product or service.
How could you see this approach working for your sales team?
