Close Sales Faster By Understanding Your Buyer’s Journey | Selling Made Simple

Most people think the best sales reps are selfish, that they only think about closing a deal from THEIR side, not the buyer’s. They’re focused on the sales funnel, not the buying process. But it turns out the most successful reps put 90% of their energy into understanding WHY buyers make a purchase. They focus on what’s known as the buyer’s journey. Because doing so makes nurturing a deal and closing 10X easier. And guess what, you can do the same too. What Is the Buyer’s Journey? Basically, the buyer’s journey is how your buyers go from being unaware of their problem to deciding to purchase your solution. Most sales professionals break the journey down into five stages: 1. No Awareness No Awareness where the buyer doesn’t even understand they have a problem. 2. Awareness Awareness where they’ve acknowledged the problem exists and are seeking more information about it. 3. Exploring Solutions Exploring Solutions where the buyer is trying to find the right product to solve their problem. 4. Comparing Vendors Comparing Vendors where they are weighing the pros and cons of different solutions. 5. Purchase Decision And Purchase Decision where, you guessed it… they decide to purchase a particular solution. Now, as they move through these five stages, they’ll interact with touch points that push them forward to the next stage. Touch points could be content like articles, case studies, and testimonials, but they’ll also be initial conversations with sales reps, demos, and sales calls. How Has the Buyer’s Journey Changed? How the buyer’s journey has changed recently. Here’s what the old buyer’s journey looked like: About 40% of the journey was covered by content the buyer would consume on their own. After that, sales would get involved and help guide the buyer through the remaining 60%. But these days, the buyer’s journey looks more like this: Nowadays sales reps are typically only involved in the final 20% of the journey—a huge change from the model of the past. This model has only gotten even more hands-off since the rise of COVID. In fact, a study from McKinsey found that 70-80% of B2B decisionmakers now prefer remote or digital self-service models vs. traditional models. This shift spells out three distinct changes for sales professionals like you: 1. The Sales Cycle Is Longer Than Ever The sales cycle is longer than ever, which means more in-depth sales cadences and customer lifetime value are incredibly important. 2. Content Needs to Be More Strategic Two, content needs to be more strategic. B2B buyers now consume at least 13 pieces of content before making a buying decision. As a result, your content needs to be specifically tailored for the buyer’s journey stage they’re currently in (more on that in just a bit). 3. “Education First, Salesmanship Second” And finally, you need to adopt an “education first, salesmanship second” mindset to be successful in this new world of sales. Longer relationships, a complicated journey, and fewer sales rep touch points mean buyers will focus more on the value you provide, not the charm you exude. Mapping Your Buyer’s Journey Now, the question is how can you change up your buyer’s journey to create a sales cycle tailored to this new reality? This is where the Buyer’s Journey Framework from the Selling Made Simple Academy comes in. The first step is to understand how your own customers are actually moving through the buyer’s journey. And that takes plotting out five factors. 1. Which Step Do You Meet Them? Which step do you meet them? If it’s earlier in the cycle, you may want to consider shifting your personal touch points to later in the journey. Rather than having a sales conversation with prospects in the No Awareness stage,