Today's buyers need more than just a salesperson’s words to get them to make a purchase...
With a variety of options to choose from for products and services, a salesperson has to do more to convince potential buyers. Additionally, today's buyers are more exposed and informed than ever. Before they decide to make a purchase, they have usually done their proper research and have questions that a salesperson should have answers to.
If you are a startup on the route to find profitability, you may want to incorporate buyer enablement into your sales strategy.
But what is buyer enablement?
What is buyer enablement?
Buyer enablement is the process of equipping buyers with the relevant information when they need it, to enable them to assess their problem and how your product or service will help them solve it. Today's buyer wants more from a salesperson than just memorised lines about product features and someone who’s just worried about meeting the company's sales mark.
Buyer enablement is different from sales enablement, but the concept is the same. While buyer enablement is aimed at helping buyers purchase with the assistance of the right information and tools, sales enablement is aimed at helping sellers sell goods and services using the right tools and information. The global market for sales enablement platforms is surging; growing at a CAGR of 19.5% over the period 2020-2027.
This process involves transforming your sales personnel into experts who can give prospective buyers the information and advice they need. It's about equipping your sales personnel with the right tools so that they can in turn empower the buyer before they can buy the product or service.
At the core of the buyer enablement concept is the idea that if you provide the buyer with the right information and tools, they are more likely to buy.
As a salesperson, it's important to know and understand your buyer's preferences before, during, and after a sale and put yourself in their shoes so as to give them an experience of a lifetime. About 84% of business buyers say that experience is just as important as the product or service being sold, with around 67% willing to pay more for a great experience.
Dealing with a B2B buyer and making successful deals isn’t a walk in the park. It’s a complicated process that involves a number of people.
Before a salesperson can make deals with a B2B buyer, they must understand what the whole buying process entails. For these buyers, 6 main stages are involved:
Awareness
The buyer is aware that there’s a problem even if they can’t state what the problem is exactly. They are, however, keen to understand the market and find the best ways to solve their problem.
Consideration
The buyer has clarity about the problem and is concentrating on how to solve it.
Interest
At this point, the buyer has reached out to different avenues that offer solutions but is fixed on detailed information suitable to their needs.
Preference
The buyer has engaged all suitable people offering solutions but at this stage is building consensus with other stakeholders.
Validation
The buyer is seeking validation of their decision from external stakeholders and customer references. They are keen on ROI data to back up their choice.
Purchase
The buyer is confident in their decision and is ready to make a purchase and make a deal.
At the core of all these stages, what’s crucial for B2B sales to be successful is content. It must be relevant and consistent throughout all the stages. Your content must be based on the personas of the targeted buyer and their pain points, be solution-oriented, provide ROI analysis and be post-purchase focused so that the information doesn’t end after a purchase or deal has been made.
Why is buyer enablement important?
For the modern buyer, the salesperson is no longer their first point of contact. Before they make that call to the salesperson, they have researched, asked questions, and looked at the competitors.
The faster and easier you make your prospective buyer's journey, the better. This will not only make you stand out, but it will also increase your chances of them becoming your customer. And in the end, it will help you to build a relationship with them.
Using buyer enablement in your sales strategy
To successfully incorporate the buyer enablement concept into your organisation's sales strategy, the following tips are helpful:
Know and recognise your buyers
This sounds basic but it's at the core of having successful buyer enablement. This is the idea that makes all the difference.
Understand your distinct categories of buyers, their personalities, their preferences, their pain points, and their buying journeys and process.
There are four categories of buyers...
The analytical buyer
Works with data and capacity to compare and evaluate. To enable this buyer, give them adequate datasheets, ROI calculators, in-depth demos, and proof of concepts.
The amiable buyer
Is easy to interact with but falls short of being assertive. To move this buyer, frame urgency around your solutions so they feel compelled to act decisively.
The expressive buyer
Is interactive and responsive but has a short attention span. Go straight to the point with relevant content to enable this buyer.
The driver buyer who is strongly opinionated and assertive. They are firm negotiators and will often drive the interactions. To enable them, approach them prepared with facts, testimonials, and data-backed content.
Once you know and understand the different buyer categories, you'll tailor-make your buyer enablement strategy accordingly.
Maximise the potential buyer's experience
With busy lives, schedules, work, and home demands, and the availability of thousands of options to choose from, the modern buyer wants an experience that's effortless but exciting at the same time.
As a salesperson, it's crucial that you make the most out of the prospective buyer's experience by making their work easy. For instance, be reachable by leaving your contact information. If a buyer can't reach you easily, they will find another person.
Practice active Listening
Most sellers are good at making their sales pitch and nothing more. They become paralysed when buyers ask questions or need more information.
To stand out from your competitors, listen to your buyers and pay attention to their concerns, queries, and suggestions. Be armed with information to respond to their queries satisfactorily.
As a sales representative working with the buyer enablement concept, your job is to advise and equip the buyer with the right tools and information. Your primary aim is not to sell. The main goal is to assist the buyer in simplifying the decision-making.
Value add Interaction
Give relevant and valuable content to your potential buyers. This content doesn't necessarily have to be geared towards making a sale but enhancing their experience whether your interaction will end in a sale or not.
It all boils down to the buyer's needs and not yours.
Interact from the buyer's perspective and not yours
All your interactions with potential buyers should be from their point of view and on their terms, and not yours. Even the mode of communication should be based on what works best for them and not you.
Give information that's relevant and convenient for them. Don't overwhelm them with too much information and unnecessary details.
Employ the use of a sales playbook and sales microsite
A sales playbook is a well-written collection of best practices that sales representatives use for particular sales scenarios.
By 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur in digital channels.
Some of the popular sales software include Dooly; a sales enablement program that is tailor-made for B2B selling revenue teams and Spekit; a digital sales enablement medium that assists with training and equipping remote-working sales teams with an extensive product suite that contains digital sales playbooks.
A microsite is a website that is brand-specific that organisations and companies use to boost their products, campaigns, services, and events.
By 2026, 30% of B2B sales cycles will be primarily run through a digital sales room (DSR)–which is a Pod in our trumpet world – which will be used to manage the customer life cycle.
Using lead generation tools
One of the most treasured assets any sales team can have today is lead generation software. These tools assist in understanding a website’s traffic, automating marketing activities, upgrading the quality of your sales lead, pushing for more revenue, and tracking customer engagement.
Examples of these tools include Cognism (whose best feature is advance targeting), Apollo (for interaction), Zoominfo (best for conversation data), and Snovio (for better conversion, quality leads and follow-ups).
One of the valuable assets your sales team will really appreciate is lead generation software.
In short
The modern buyer has changed and that means the modern seller has to change and adapt by focusing on the buyer and giving them the best and most exciting journey possible.
If you want your organisation’s sales strategy to succeed, it's important to adapt to these changes by incorporating buyer enablement into your sales strategy.
That's one of the ways to make it in these evolving times because it's no longer just about making sales and profits but also about the buyer and their experience.
