Selling to Savvy Buyers

The impact of the Web on the sales process

By Jeremy Miller

Access to information has dramatically changed the role of the sales person. You don't have to look far to see the impact of the Internet on a buying cycle. Consider the last car you purchased, did you use the Internet to short list and focus your buying decision? The majority of people buying vehicles are researching their options in detail on the Web: comparing models, reading product reviews, getting detailed quotes and choosing options. By the time the buyer has met the sales person the majority of the purchasing process has already taken place.

Access to information has leveled the competitive landscape. There are very few products or services entering the market that are revolutionary. The vast majority of products and services are either additive or just convenient for the buyer. Why choose one Microsoft business partner over another? When you look at the forest through the trees they are basically selling the same suite of services. Yet the skills, knowledge and focus of the sales person can make all the difference in the buying cycle.

Customers Demand Knowledge

Sure there is loads of information available on the Net, but what does that information mean to you? Savvy shoppers expect their sales people to be in sync with them almost immediately. They don't want to educate sales people on their business; they want the them to possess that knowledge. We call this "situational knowledge" – the intrinsic knowledge of a client's business, industry and processes. For example if you are selling into the Telco sector, situational knowledge might include the major competitive forces impacting the top tier providers, standard protocols, government regulations and the key customer segments.

Many sales organizations have addressed situational knowledge by incorporating verticals into their marketing portfolio. The Microsoft partners move beyond being a "body shop" to a value-add provider when they build targeted solutions for specific markets. Blending situational knowledge with your products and services is called "capability knowledge." Capability knowledge is the deep understanding of how your products and services solve problems within the specific context of the customer's business, environment and processes. Most firms approach capability knowledge from a generalist perspective by educating sales people on how the product works and its overall benefits. This level of knowledge is simply the baseline, but a savvy shopper that is already aware of the features and benefits wants to see how the solution will impact their unique environment.

The blend of a sales person's situational and capability knowledge is their business acumen. A sales person with limited business acumen can destroy high quality leads even before they have fully entered the funnel. I recently evaluated CRM software solutions for our business. With each product presentation I asked the sales person to demonstrate how his system would handle a specific situation that was unique to our business. What surprised me was the number of sales people that were unable to address my needs. In almost every case the sales people lacked the situational or capability knowledge to support requests outside of the general sales training program.

Busy buyers are saturated with options – no one has time to teach a sales person about his industry and environment. As a result business acumen is not an option. Every sales person must have the right mix of situational and capability knowledge to sell high value solutions, and to compete in a marketplace that expects products that fit specific needs almost immediately. This business acumen is a key competitive differentiator, because it allows a sales person to connect with the customer and help them visualize the solution in their environment.

Taking the Driver's Seat

The new context of selling has real implications for the sales force. An educated buyer means that they are entering much further down the sales funnel than ever before. The new entry point means that a rigid sales process and generic product spiel won't cut it. The CRM sales people that did best with us threw out their canned product pitches and focused on our business case. They knew we didn't care about how many years they were in business, their flagship customers or competitive differentiators; we had done that research prior to calling. We wanted to see our primary problem – our trigger event – demonstrated and resolved. If the sales rep couldn't provide the answer quickly we didn't need to go to the next step.

To focus the attention of the sales force, they must be taught to look for trigger events. A trigger event is the reason the buyer enters the sales funnel: a problem, an opportunity or a challenge they are looking to resolve. Trigger events are often confused with emotional events. The customer does not want to develop an emotional association with your brand or solution; they want the emotion that comes from purchasing and implementing the solution. To revisit the car-buying topic, the person that goes to a BMW dealership has very different triggers than the person looking for a minivan. The BMW buyer could be an upwardly mobile manager that is rewarding himself with a new car. He isn't looking to be sold a practical solution; he wants to buy a toy.

What triggers drive your sales funnel? Sales people's business acumen skyrocket when they know why a customer is drawn to the product, and the key areas that motivate purchasing behavior. Secondarily, what are the emotional responses the customer will gain from purchasing your product? Trigger events give sales people the roadmap to focus their presentation, lead their questioning and ultimately close the deal. It provides them the destination to apply all of their situational knowledge and capability knowledge to answer the customer's questions and to present real value in the buying process.

We have all dealt with sales people that did not get it. They are frustrating to deal with and detract from our impression of their company. Yet sales people that get our challenge, present to our needs and catch up to us in the buying process are a joy to work with. These are the people that help us to cut through the clutter of a knowledge economy, and present solutions that are tied to our end game. Sales people that possess strong business acumen are a primary competitive advantage in a knowledge economy. They turn products that look the same on the surface into solutions we want to buy – and more importantly need to buy.

Jeremy Miller (Jeremy.Miller@LEAPJob.com) is a Partner with LEAPJob (www.LEAPJob.com). LEAPJob is a sales recruiting and sales force consulting firm that helps companies achieve their growth targets by building top performing sales organizations. You can reach Jeremy at 905.281.3090, Ext. 22