Buyers ≠ Liars
Why understanding how buyers buy, will help your sellers sell
Hello friends -
I’ve written about this before (Why Buyers Buy and Sellers vs. Buyers), but to truly understand a sales motion - I feel it’s crucial to understand buyer behavior.
Not all buyers are deceitful - even if it may seem as such. Often times - sellers are afraid of the NO - so we skip the hard questions.
Too many times, I’ve seen deals go smoothly in early-mid stages - then push to the very edge and get inverted. At this point - we need to ask ourselves if and how we’re still communicating? (Top Gun FTW).
Do we understand the buying process? Why/How/When?
In this week’s edition of Stretch Weekly -
Nate Nasralla talks about designing your sale around specific buying behavior.
Kyle Asay talks about shifting your mindset from “converting” the opportunity to “qualifying the opportunity” and specifically motivating and enabling your buyers
And don’t miss more snippets on the buyer’s journey, and process to help win more deals.
THANKS for reading!!
-Grant
And lastly - as always, if you find this newsletter valuable- subscribe or share it with someone who might as well 👊.
STRETCH SHARES
Designing a Sale Around Buying Behavior
If you lead Enterprise Sales - Nate Nasralla is a must follow. His main premise is selling WITH buyers, not to them.
In this article Nate talks about designing your sale around specific buying behavior. Here’s how:
1. Increasing your overlap with internal sales activities.
Take a look at the above graphic - closed won deals have more internal activities influenced by the sales rep than closed lost deals.
Buying isn’t linear. Complex selling isn’t either.
Buyers measure sales cycle in hours - not months.
Utilize tactics to enable your champion’s internal sales (This is GOLD!)
2. Design pipeline stages around buying behaviors. 3 specifically:
Sales Activities. Prepping for a group demo/meeting with sales engineer (I’d add internal sales team)
Mutual Activities. Group demo (I’d add technical) meetings with both sellers and buyers.
Buying Activities. An internal debrief (your customer) unpacking findings from the demo.
Nate gives some recommendations on tweaking the sales stages a bit to align with how buyers buy!
Motivate and Enable Your Buyer
I’ve come across some excellent insights from Kyle Asay lately on LinkedIn, and also subscribed to his own newsletter - SalesIntroverts.com.
On a recent LinkedIn post - Kyle talked about spending months trying to get into an account at “senior” levels - without a response. Then moved to an entry-level professional and finally booked a meeting. This individual wasn’t a “buyer”, but gave insight into a C-Level goal as well as other info which he used to subsequently impress the C-Level enough to book a meeting and kick off the opportunity.
He went on to talk about shifting your mindset from “converting” the opportunity to “qualifying the opportunity” and specifically motivating and enabling your buyers in one of his own posts.
Highlights:
Motivate your buyers by asking:
What metrics measure their performance?
What systems/processes are hurting their attainment of the above metrics?
How would they measure the success of implementing your solution?
Enable your buyers by asking:
What significant changes have the organization made recently and why?
How would the organization measure the success of implementing your solution?
Check out Kyle’s full write up HERE
STRETCH SNIPPETS
🔦 Buying is not easy! Kevin Dorsey shines a light on a typical buying process and what we as sellers need to think about to make it easier.
⏳ Armand Farrokh says sellers need need a 5 minute and 45 minute demo. Sell the 10% that matters most on the 5 minute demo. Then sell the rest on the 45 minute demo.
👀 Buyers don't want to be prospected, or demoed, or closed. These steps add zero value to the buyer. Buyers are looking for additional information about your product that can't be found online. Lauren Hintz tells us why understanding the buyer's journey as a seller is key!
🗣 Paul Salamanca reminds us that buyers are people too. Focus on helping them solve THEIR problems.
👉 Mark Cuban gets 1000 emails a day. How does he decide which ones to open? The preview text, says William Ballance. Busy readers glance over your subject line and go straight to the preview text.
🧠 Mindset
Thanks for reading!
My hope is if you find this valuable, consider sharing it with friends (or signing up if you haven’t already).
— Grant 👋
About stretch vp: confessions, learnings, and insights from sales leaders in SaaS
Compiled and aggregated from a network of sales leaders in SaaS, Stretch VP showcases learnings, insights, and experiences as well as best practices to overcome common hurdles, obstacles, and setbacks in your quest for excellence as a sales leader in SaaS.
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