Challenge: Identifying Lengthy Sales Cycles 

Sales leaders in the tech industry can detect the challenge of longer sales cycles through a few key indicators within their organizations. This might manifest as an increasing time between initial customer contact and deal closure, a growing number of touchpoints or interactions needed before a sale is secured, or feedback from the sales team about the complexities and delays in customer decision-making processes. It’s often noticeable in the form of elongated negotiations, extended pilot programs, or increased requirements for technical validations. 

Root Causes for Longer Sales Cycles 

Several factors contribute to longer sales cycles in the tech sector: 

  1. Complex Decision-Making Units: Tech purchases often involve a multitude of stakeholders, each with their own set of concerns and requirements. The decision-making unit may include IT professionals, end-users, financial controllers, and senior executives, each needing to be convinced of the problem, why it has to be solved now and how you are unique in solving their challenge.  
  1. Complexity of Customer Problems: Customers are seeking solutions for increasingly complex problems, which require sophisticated and customized tech solutions. Understanding these complexities and tailoring the sales approach to address them specifically can extend the duration of the sales cycle. 
  1. Budget Cycles and Financial Scrutiny: Given the significant investment often associated with technology solutions, purchases may be tied to customers’ fiscal planning cycles and subjected to rigorous financial scrutiny and require having everybody aligned on the necessity of the investment to be done 
  1. Market Saturation and Competition: A crowded marketplace means that customers often have many options to consider, leading to a more extended comparison and evaluation phase
  1. Regulatory and Compliance Issues: Especially in industries like healthcare or finance, sales are impacted by various regulatory and compliance requirements, which can further lengthen the sales process as these boxes need to be checked before a deal can progress. 

Strategies to Anticipate and Navigate Longer Sales Cycles 

To anticipate and effectively manage these extended sales cycles, consider the following strategic approaches: 

  1. Align Sales and Marketing with Customer Buying Behaviors: Develop a sales and marketing strategy that is in lockstep with the customer’s buying behavior. This involves creating a common understanding of how your customers buy, what the right conversation should be with the different stakeholders, and which are the key touchpoints. The fact that every customer is unique in his or her behavior, you need a fuzzy logic approach that can align to each different situation.  Creating the capabilities in your team for understanding where the potential customer is in their buying readiness is key.  Utilize data analytics to predict when customers are most likely to engage, allowing sales teams to initiate the right conversations at the right time. Content marketing should be leveraged to educate and nurture leads throughout the buying process, providing them with the information they need when they need it, effectively shortening the sales cycle by aligning with their pace and progress.
  2. Facilitate Buying Committee Alignment: Since tech purchases often involve a committee, it’s essential to align your sales process with the various stages of their buying journey. This means understanding the unique concerns and criteria of each stakeholder and tailoring communication to address these points. Sales representatives should aim to facilitate consensus among the committee by identifying and addressing the specific needs of each member. This might involve creating tailored conversations, aligned messaging and facilitating workshops or demonstrations that address collective and individual concerns. All while maintaining open lines of communication to ensure that all members move through the buying process together. 
  3. Simplify and Intuitize the Sales Approach: A complex sales process can be daunting for both the customer and the sales team. Streamlining the sales methodology to be simple and intuitive is critical. This can be achieved by using a simple metaphor that everybody can understand and that is easy to implement. It ideally outlines each step in the customer buying process, from initial issue awareness to post-sale follow-up.Training programs should focus on reinforcing these methods until they become second nature to the sales team. Additionally, employing tools such as CRM systems that provide prompts and reminders can help ensure that the sales methodology is consistently applied across all interactions.

      By implementing these strategies, sales leaders in the tech industry can better prepare their teams to navigate the challenges of longer sales cycles, ultimately leading to more successful outcomes and sustained business growth. 


      Does it still make sense to present the sales process as a linear multi-step progression? And if not, how can we organize sales to handle today’s complex reality? 

      During the industrial revolution in the 19th century, industrialists tried to streamline and standardise factory production into linear processes as much as possible – thinking that this would help them to manage their activities, predict the outcome of each step in the production process, and so ensure a consistent level of quality.  

      We still view the sales process today largely in the same linear way as the industrialists did back in the 19th century. We get a sales lead in, qualify it, have a discovery meeting, exert our influence in the offer phase, and do whatever it takes to close the deal.  

      We often assess our salespeople’s productivity according to this linear logic: we count the number of appointments, offers and conversion rate for these offers, and then we try to optimize this process as much as possible. The leading salesperson in the organization is usually the benchmark in this assessment, with the lesser gods needing to mould themselves into their image.  

      Increasing complexity  

      Organizing sales according to this linear representation works to a certain extent – the complexity of the sales process can be manageable if you share exactly the same sales dynamic in all deals, and only have to deal with one type of stakeholder, with a similar order size each time…  

      But the reality is completely different and much more complex for most salespeople:  

      • Most salespeople are responsible for different products and serve different vertical markets
      • The number of stakeholders who make or influence decisions is growing all the time. The most recent research speaks of 5 to 20 stakeholders, depending on the size and complexity of activities
      • The various decision-makers and influencers are rarely or never all in the same mental phase in the buying journey. Some of them will not yet see the benefits of your product, while others might have been wanting it for a long time already. Each stakeholder will have travelled part of the buying journey from the perspective of their own responsibilities, and considered the impact of your product on their department

      This alone can result in overwhelming complexity already, which makes it difficult for individual salespeople to handle. Every element in this complicated matrix of products, industries, stakeholders and buying phases demands a different sales conversation. Also bear in mind that each salesperson is working on multiple deals at the same time. 

      Linear internal processes  

      The linear approach is unfortunately still the most common, and it’s often cemented in rigid processes and CRM systems. It’s a recipe for failure. A typical example is a salesperson having a conversation with a prospect who knows exactly what they want but does not have the authority to make a decision. A CRM often cannot handle this complexity.  

      The classic picture of suspect – prospect – discovery – solution – object handling – closing has often been updated and aligned with a typical buying process for complex sales, but even here, salespeople are often forced into a linear framework of ‘required steps to follow’.

      Even in complex sales, salespeople are often forced into a linear framework of necessary steps to follow

      The typical marketing approach, where prospects go through a funnel from awareness to decision, may be useful for content marketing and digital customer journeys, but it is too simplistic to represent the complexity of the actual buying journey, and certainly not suitable for tracing buying readiness. Is someone who downloads your eBook interested in buying your product? Maybe. But just as often they do this out of personal interest. 

      Adapting to the unique buying journey  

      It’s clear that every buying journey is unique, and classic sales models cannot adequately capture this reality. Every decision-maker has taken their own path, and it’s difficult for a linear process to provide an answer to that. As a salesperson, you are constantly entering into the customer’s buying journey at different moments. Forcing an internal, linear process on the customer’s mental process is therefore useless. 

      Marketing Funnel
      As a salesperson, you are constantly breaking into the customer’s buying journey at different moments. This cannot be represented in a linear way

      Take the example of a couple entering an electronics store to look for a new TV. The tech geek in the couple will likely be quickly convinced about the latest features on the new 8K HD device. The more price-conscious half of the couple may wonder whether a new purchase is even necessary. As a salesperson, you need to adapt to each buyer’s mental phase. You probably won’t be able to bluff the price-conscious half of the couple with features (decision). Nor will you have to point out to the tech geek the necessity for a new TV (awareness).  

      What salespeople need today, to be able to handle complexity, is an adaptive model that allows them to be agile and adapt to every situation. The salesperson’s main task is therefore to detect the customer’s mental state and buying readiness. If they can do this, it’s important that they respond to that mental state by doing the right thing at the right time. Developing sales people is one of the main responsibilities for sales leaders. Making sure sales people can report on the real situations in every deal in a very pragmatic but structured way is needed to enable steering and coaching. A classic multi-step process greatly restricts this and makes business reviews too time consuming, with a lot of irrelevant storytelling, and without the expected outcome.


      In our conversations with CEOs and sales and marketing directors, we keep hearing the same comment – that fewer and fewer salespeople are meeting their targets. And further investigation has made the reason for this very clear: salespeople have insufficient knowledge of their customers and the market, and are lacking some of the specific competencies required in today’s marketplace. 

      Various research has shown that revenue and sales quotas are becoming increasingly difficult to achieve. For example, one study by Sales Insights Lab in 2021 demonstrated that only 24.3% of salespeople were managing to exceed their sales quota. So is there a problem with salespeople’s productivity?  

      Much depends on how we present sales productivity, because the concept is very often seen as a combination of efficiency and effectiveness.  

      Sales Productivity

      And this presentation is a good reflection of traditional sales training, where the main aim is to clone top salespeople’s behaviour into the DNA for other salespeople. According to figures from the Association for Talent Development, the US alone spends $24 billion per year on this.  

      But this approach has a disappointing outcome. Fewer and fewer salespeople are achieving their quotas, and fewer and fewer companies are achieving their revenue targets. So the main challenge is no longer effectiveness, but a lack of knowledge about the customer and an inability to link any available knowledge to products and services.  

      What has changed? 

      Almost everyone agrees that customers are much better informed nowadays. And one consequence of this is that customers prefer it when we are less active in trying to sell. They don’t want us to try to convince them, and instead like to make their own minds up. So traditional methods of talking about the company, products and services simply don’t work anymore because customers can find all the information they need on the internet. They used to accept the information we gave them and were happy with that because there was no alternative, but now they can find all the information they need about products and services without any help or intervention from salespeople. 

      The fact that customers can now serve themselves with this information also has a significant downside, however. How do they deal with conflicting information and advice? How do they know what is correct or relevant?  

      And this is where the opportunity now lies for customer-facing professionals: providing added value, offering useful content, and having meaningful conversations. These are now the most important reasons for customers wanting to engage in dialogue with a salesperson. They expect the salesperson to know their environment and responsibilities, and don’t want to have to bring them up to speed themselves. But they do expect the salesperson to engage in dialogue, share their experiences from other companies, and enhance the buyer’s perspective.  

      What has not changed? 

      All of this has led to a steep rise in content production over recent years because we want to ensure customers can inform themselves. Some suppliers and analysts even claim that content marketing is taking over from sales. Unfortunately, however, it’s not quite that simple.  

      Customers may well be informing themselves more, but content marketing has not solved the problem of declining sales quotas and salespeople productivity. In B2B, digital interactions are just as necessary as personal interactions with sales – as a recent study by Forrester confirms (Sales Enablement: Planning Assumptions 2022, Forrester Research Inc., September 2021). Interactions with customers have only increased recently, e.g. from 16 to 17 between 2017 and 2019, and from 17 to 27 during the pandemic. Customers are seeking out information for themselves, but they still need answers. And this is where the salesperson comes in – because they are still seen as a partner here.

      Furthermore: the type of interaction (digital versus personal with the salesperson) is independent of the phase in the buying process. It’s not the case that a salesperson is only forced to join in at the end of the buying cycle. So we need to make sure we interpret the almost mythical figure – that 57% of the buying cycle is completed before a salesperson is involved – from research firm CEB (now Gartner), correctly. As mentioned above, the customer is better informed these days. So their decision criteria have typically already become more influenced.  

      A salesperson with the right knowledge can therefore engage in dialogue with the customer and avoid this pitfall. It’s all about having meaningful conversations. And it’s not relevant whether these conversations take place through personal interaction or indirect communications – as long as the buyer finds answers in every phase of the buying cycle. Again: content marketing is essential, just like sales. And one cannot do without the other in complex B2B environments. 

      And what about training?  

      Traditional sales training has become outdated, just like the focus on quotas based on efficiency and effectiveness. What we need today, more than ever before, is more focus on sharing knowledge and experiences (see graph). 

      Our advice to sales managers is therefore to enable salespeople to share useful information with customers during sales conversations, and to introduce a common language in your training that encourages team selling and experience sharing. Customer-facing professionals want to be able to have meaningful conversations that are relevant to the context and the customer’s phase in the buying cycle. ‘Just in time’ is the key phrase here. We are therefore seeing increased benefits in training that teaches competencies which allow salespeople to introduce contextually relevant cases, from themselves or at least from their environment. 

      Increasing sales productivity again 

      Our analyses consistently show that salespeople who possess the right knowledge, skills and tools are more likely to meet their quotas. This clearly falls under the realm of sales enablement, a continuous process of giving your customer-facing employees the knowledge, skills and tools they need. 

      Figures from Miller Heiman Group from 2019 support this claim (see graph below), and they show the impact of sales enablement in their 5th Annual Sales Enablement Study. Organizations without sales enablement achieve a win rate of 42.5%, 3.9% lower than the average (46.4%). Organizations with sales enablement achieve an average win rate of 49.0%, a huge 15.3% increase. 

      Win Rates for Forecast Deals

      Win Rates for Forecast Deals

      Creating an environment like this in your organization can therefore significantly improve your sales results. But how do you do that? First and foremost, you need a company culture that encourages continuous learning and improvement. Additionally, it’s also best to make relevant content available in bite-sized pieces, easily accessible, and with clear instructions on when and with whom to use it.  

      In other words, the solution lies in continuously sharing knowledge and experiences to improve the productivity of salespeople and the entire sales team.  

      To find out more, get in touch with one of our experts who will be happy to provide you with specifically tailored and actionable input. Book your appointment today. 

      Want to learn more? Download our eBook:


      In our previous post, we explained that a complex business negotiation is much like a chess game. It’s about making a move and anticipating your customer’s next moves. One of our customers, a packaging company, recently learned this by following our Complex Negotiations Implementation Track, an intense training & development program for sales teams and management professionals. Throughout the process, our customer started to have a pretty good idea of what they were doing right and should do more of, what they needed to stop doing, and what they needed to start doing. We packed all the valuable lessons in a practical overview.  
       

      What they need to CONTINUE doing 

      Have strategic conversations

      Before going into the negotiation and even quotation phase, start by exploring the customer’s challenges and priorities for improvement. During preparations, also talk to technical teams or people on the work floor. 

      Sell the value, not the product  

      Sales reps like to see their customer relationship as a partnership, where they jointly work on Total Cost of Ownership. This is a much better choice than just defending the value or margin on your product. To do this successfully, you need to be able to prove the value you are offering, whether it’s a cost reduction, cost avoidance, increased revenue, or decreased risk.  

      You need to make clear that taking your company out of the equation would have a negative impact, one that outweighs the potential price gain from working with a cheaper vendor. The value you offer, including the specialty services on top of your product, is something unique.  

      Prepare, prepare, and then prepare some more 

      Hamlet knew: readiness is all. Preparation does make a difference. Prepare your meetings and calls by inputting data and insights from the customer in a structured way and always determine a next objective before starting any new customer interaction.   

      What they need to STOP doing 

      Give discounts  

      Discounts don’t exist. Concessions are always a value transfer. Giving a discount without getting something in return will undermine your integrity and credibility. You are always offering the best price as part of your partnership. That is why you need something in return when your customer needs a lower price.  

      Enter price negotiations before issues are solved  

      Before going into the negotiation endgame (where you discuss what to give and take), you should reconfirm all actions that have been agreed upon and that have led to resolving all objections and concerns. It makes no sense to start your endgame discussion when some issues are still on the table.  

      Oversell 

      Don’t talk about features or benefits before you are sure that your customer will perceive these as valuable. You need clear confirmation from your customer about the relevance of your features and benefits.  

      Ask self-serving questions  

      Questions like ‘when are you taking a decision?’ do not help the customer. Instead, ask things like ‘by when would you like to see the first shipment or implementation?’ 

      Assume things  

      It’s dangerous to assume things. What happened yesterday or today, will not necessarily happen tomorrow. Don’t assume something to be true even if it is true 99% of the time. Instead discuss it with your customer and get confirmation. Remember: one mistake with one customer is 100% failure. 

       “Give” before preparing a give and take list 

      You should always have a list of “gives and takes” before entering a negotiation. You need to know what concessions the customer is willing to do in exchange for your give list. Remember, it’s not wise to start giving before the Middlegame (all non-price related matters) has ended.  

      What they need to START doing 

      Ask the magic opening question 

      ‘What has changed since the last time we spoke’ is a great opening question. You don’t always know what has happened since you last spoke with your customer, so you should ask this question every time before going into the meeting agenda.  

      Close every meeting  

      ABC – Always Be Closing: try to get as close as possible to your next objective. Summarize what is agreed upon and ask for confirmation. 

      Use the pre-close technique  

      You have explored give/take scenarios and you have confirmed these with your internal team/management. The next thing you want to do is apply the pre-closing technique. This means that you assess the mood of the buyer before asking for the sale, so you can move your prospect forward more easily.  

      Use the Game Plan template  

      When reaching the Middlegame (resolving objections and concerns), use the Game Plan template. This is a tactical support tool which challenges you on all levels. 

      Assess the Balance of Power  

      Before going into the end game, assess the Balance of Power to prevent procurement from using pressure and emotion as a negotiation tactic. Many sales professionals underestimate the power they have over the customer. You might be surprised about the impact you have on a customer when you talk about what they would lose when moving to a competitor or what they would gain when they do (more) business with you. If you negotiate with more confidence, you will achieve more margin. 

      Let’s play chess 

      Negotiations are much like chess. And when you apply these lessons learned you’re much more likely to make the best moves and win the game.  

      Even if you’re an experienced sales professional, there’s something to be learned here. Based upon my own sales leadership experience, I firmly believe it’s good to be challenged sometimes, especially when you are confronted with changing circumstances, or when you have been in the same company or business for quite some time.  

      Just like our packaging customer, it’s a great, eye-opening exercise to draft your own start – stop – continue plan. In fact, I believe this can benefit any sales professional, whether you are experienced or not. It’s useful to always refresh your skills, polish your good habits, and have a fresh pair of eyes looking over your shoulder.

      My colleagues and I have supported many experienced and senior professionals in this. If you are looking for a negotiation trajectory, similar to what we have offered to our packaging customer, we can be that partner for you.


      If life is like a box of chocolates, then a business negotiation is definitely like a chess game. It’s about making a move and anticipating the next move of your customer. That’s the analogy we use in our complex negotiations implementation track, which we recently offered to a customer in the packaging industry. Let’s have a look at how we improved this customer’s negotiation outcomes. 

      A few days into the implementation track, we already received encouraging customer feedback:

      Thanks to the Perpetos workshop on Complex Negotiations, we were able to close a difficult negotiation that had been going on for several months, and we brought a good result home.

      Of course, this didn’t come out of nothing. Just like a chess game, the negotiations had a well-prepared opening, middlegame and end game. Here is what happened. 

      Opening: price pressure  

      Our above-mentioned packaging company was suddenly confronted with one of their long-term, high-volume customers who after a leadership change decided to bid and test the market. The customer wanted to reduce their current raw material prices by 5% and even succeeded in obtaining a price offer that was 12% below our packaging company’s proposal.  

      The customer was not opposed to a 3-year agreement per se. However, they did not want to be tied to automatic material (price) increases. Instead, they preferred to negotiate and test the market annually. In chess terms, the customer had made its opening move.  

      Middlegame: a well-conceived game plan  

      Was giving in to price pressure the only option for our packaging company? Far from it. This is how they handled it differently. For starters, the packaging company’s sales representative prepared his case using our Game Plan Template, which focuses on the customer’s needs and helps to map out all possible scenarios prior to the first customer meeting. 

      Next, the sales rep assessed the balance of power. Based on that, he came to an understanding how he could influence that balance and determine his starting position. His plan A was a 3-year contract with a 16% price increase. Plan B included a 3-year contract with an 11% price increase and 10 M$ of new volume. 

      The sales rep started the meeting with one simple question: “What has changed since the last time we spoke?” The question brought him a ton of new information about the buyer’s priorities and additional responsibilities. During the discussion, the focus was not so much on selling the packaging, but it shifted towards the added value and services provided by the packaging company. The sales rep also made sure that all open issues were closed at the table. This boxed the buyer into a position where he did not have any leverage relating to service or quality.  

      End game: giving and taking   

      Despite expecting a 5% price reduction, the customer did sign a 3-year contract with a 16% price increase. In exchange for this concession by the customer, the packaging sales rep agreed to reduce the increase to 11% for business or additional volumes coming from a new plant.  

      Everybody wins  

      Both buyer and seller came out better from the negotiation. This may sound easy, but in practice it’s not. It can be hard to sit in front of a customer who believes the market is softening and who demands price increases based on outdated material indices.  

      You could also argue that all the above is obvious. So, why would you need a training or implementation track for that? Our answer to that question is: anyone who has been sitting in front of a customer lately, anyone who has sensed the heat of the moment, will know that these things aren’t obvious. We don’t always apply what we have learned, especially when we’re in the everyday rush. People do not change their behavior overnight, especially salespeople, who can be a bit stubborn. (I’m allowed to say that, because I am one.) 

      Tools for negotiation success  

      At Perpetos, we develop tools, we provide handles, and we give tips to put all the above advice into practice and to embed it in your daily sales approach. Implementation is the most difficult part of a change process. That’s where we go the extra mile. We do not just train people, we help them to implement change as well. 

      Here is some feedback we received from participants of our recent implementation track: 

      Negotiation is a chess game indeed. No matter how close your relationship with the buyer is, they can never be completely truthful. Preparation is so important. Confidence in the value you can provide, makes all the difference for your mindset.

      When a customer makes a request, it’s OK to push back and ask something in return.

      I need to dig deeper and find the underlying request. Never just assume!

      Great session, it gave me the tools I need to take this to my customer.

      More chess  

      In our next blog, we’ll discuss some more lessons from the field. We’ll share the key takeaways from the implementation track followed by our packaging company. These lessons were learned during several workshops we had with the EU and US leadership team and global key account managers. 


      Many of today’s interactions take place via automated, CRM or CX management tools, which often don’t tap into the full customer potential. There’s still immense value to be had from our ‘human touchpoints’ – our moments of personal contact, which are often the only way to clearly see if your offer matches customer expectations. But it goes further than this. These moments can actively influence the customer vision and develop new potential. Customer-centric conversations are also the topic of one of our ongoing client programs, in which we’re teaching these techniques to 30 teams throughout EMEA. Over the space of three months, we’re preparing our client’s in-house and external sales teams for these challenges.  

      Human interaction is still incredibly valuable for assessing your customer’s potential and influencing their decisions – something we sometimes forget in today’s hectic world with so much focus on data. Conversations with your customer are the ideal opportunity to find out whether they can clearly see the benefits of your solution and how they will help their organization. After all, what you think you can give doesn’t always match up to what the customer is trying to buy.  

      Buyer alignment + sales effectiveness  

      Exposing this value to the customer at the right time and influencing their potential are critical for continued growth. So ask yourself whether the customer can see the value you bring, and if you can use it to accelerate their sales cycle – the intersection between buyer alignment (where your sales process aligns with the buyer journey) and sales effectiveness. Successfully combining these two aspects creates real value.  

      Value selling  

      It’s also the exact combination that we’re working on in our upskilling process for 30 teams, where value selling is still a critical component. And that’s why we – together with our client – are developing this further on a new messaging framework, and helping to convert this value and messaging in the workplace. Ready to use and available for their teams. 


      Times have never been more uncertain. Unpredictable events have become the norm, and effectively responding to disruption could be the difference between success and failure in 2023.

      The number of crises, and the frequency of these events, make it ever more important to be prepared to respond.

      In a recent survey (source: Alix Partners Disruption Index) 85% of the CEO’s interviewed agree it is becoming increasingly challenging to know which disruptive challenges to prioritize.

      Here are 4 take-aways to help you navigate through uncertain times:

      1. Align with your customers long term strategic vision or better yet, help them create it

      Make sure you truly understand the issues of your customers. Be aware that content is a significant driver in the buying decision. Value contribution has to be the #1 focus, and it takes deep relationships to understand your customers and to help them become more successful.

      2. Broaden your buying center relationships since more people are involved in the buying process

      Depending on the research source and business complexity , between 6,8 and 19 people are involved in B2B buying decisions. The length of the sales cycle increased by 22% since 2010. Make sure you are communicating with everyone involved, and connecting on a personal level with internal and external people that influence the buying process.

      3. Be sure to get involved with the customer buying journey early enough to enrich their vision of a better future state

      The following illustration outlines the customer journey. Getting involved early when the customer is investigating root causes of challenges, ways to solve and establishing decision criteria is really the only time to influence the path the customer will ultimately take when selecting a solution and a supplier. If you can help shape that vision you are more likely to be the supplier your customer chooses.

      Remember selling is all about ‘earning the right the influence’.

      4. Start from the customer’s point of view and embrace their perception of their current situation

      Put yourself in the shoes of your customer by “taking your shoes off” so you can put your own needs aside and act in the best interest of your customer.

      It’s not about what your service or product can do, but about its value to the customer. Knowing how your solution impacts their organisation and how you can help them achieve the results they desire is at the heart of helping customers in their buying journey.

      We at Perpetos strive to support our customers in continuous improvement and help them navigate through uncertain times.


      360° Buyer Alignment - Building Trust

      Article 360° Buyer Alignment

      Selling through building trust

      How can you create and build trust, aligned to each step in the buying cycles of those involved?

      The name of the game: provide relevant and value-adding messaging in every customer contact moment.

      It almost sounds like a slogan but today, even more than before, it is the challenge for sales people.

      How do you create trust during brief, and especially during digital, contact moments?

      Building trust

      You can approach trust from many angles. Trust that you deliver what you promise, trust in your competences, or in you as a person or the team, …

      This quickly brings us to the personal connection one makes during (customer) interactions. Why do certain people manage to gain trust faster than others? Or why do you make a personal connection with certain people more easily or more quickly?

      There are various models that provide a framework for gaining insights into someone’s (preferred) behavior and for adapting your behavior and communication to the people you are in contact with (Insights, Social Styles, MBTI, DISC,…). Maximizing trust in today’s market means combining authenticity with the right message at the right time, to accelerate the effect of a good personal connection.

      Over the past decades, neuroscience has explored how to map the parts of the brain that play a role in decision making, which parts light up when different emotions are felt and what connections can be made with trust. It is a fascinating and still evolving scientific discipline.

      One thing we know for sure is that the salesperson who works primarily on the relational aspect is coming under increasing pressure. Time pressure, conflicting priorities and more choice are creating a dynamic where the purely relational is no longer enough to ‘spend time with a salesperson’.

      Sales people who can detect the willingness to buy of the various stakeholders during the buying cycle can add the right relevance and are able to build trust more quickly. They ask themselves questions such as:

      • How do I create trust among all those involved, taking into account the diversity of roles, expectations, personalities, buying cycle phases, etc.?
      • How do I align my interactions, tailor my sales messages and bring value so that stakeholders recognize me as the first person to contact for genuine and relevant answers to their questions.

      Building trust with each stakeholder in a buying cycle is only possible if you can add the right relevance and adapt this to the different personalities and the willingness to buy.

      Reading Tip
      Stephen M.R. Covey’s book “The speed of Trust” is a great book to deepen your understanding of how to build trust quickly.

      Buyer alignment – buyer center coverage

      In the previous sections, we talked about building trust through personal connection and relevance, tailored to the people involved. One of the challenges that every sales person experiences, regardless of whether you work in project-based sales or more recurring sales, is broadening your network with your customers.

      A lot of opportunities are lost or stagnate because of lack of contact with and insight into all the parties involved who influence the decision. Because people now inform themselves more and more via digital means, a large part of the influencing of decisions happens outside the reach of the sales person. This is a major risk if the sales person continues to sell via a ‘sponsor’ instead of managing and developing as many relationships as possible in parallel.

      Let’s take a side step:

      LinkedIn published an article at the end of October 2021: “The Great Reshuffle is Making Selling Hard. Here’s How to Best Adjust.”

      The article indicates that we are in the midst of the “Great Reshuffle” of talent. Globally, job rotations have increased by 28% in the last three months. Corporate director-level job turnover – i.e. the mass of B2B buyers – has risen by 31% globally over the last three months.

      No wonder a recent survey found that 80% of salespeople have delayed or lost a deal because of a change in function within an account. It is difficult to sell to a moving target.

      The blog also rightly highlights the positive side of function or job changes of buyers: this can also be your entry point into a new customer if you had built up a good relationship with the buyer in question.

      When a new buyer comes in, LinkedIn states that the salesperson must align the solution with the customers’ strategic initiatives and demonstrate its value.

      The following paragraphs from the blog reinforce this:

      If you are doing this well, then you can be an asset to a new executive sponsor and help them get up to speed on the critical initiatives your solution supports.

      In this environment, the gap between strategic partners and expendable vendors is growing. The difference is value delivered at the right level and time.

      It also means giving them the tools and training to be effective in virtual selling. After all, nothing builds morale quicker than success. And the right tools and training play a big part in that.

      The LinkedIn article nicely illustrates how job rotation can have a huge impact on the buying process both within sales teams and with buyers. In addition, the blog points to the importance of broadening relationships within a customer to accommodate this and why you can be successful when the right value is delivered at the right time.