Perhaps no business unit relies on the delicate combination of science and art more than sales. Maintaining a robust data analysis operation can be highly illuminating and is necessary for almost every organization to compete in the current landscape. However, integral parts of the sales process remain hidden from even the most advanced metrics. To fill in these gaps and get a complete picture of the sales process and how it relates to your customers, it is essential to understand the more human elements that come into play.
Many of us like to think that we approach our business decisions with a level head and a dedication to logic, keeping our emotional reactions undercover until we are back with our family and friends. Humans can never turn off the part of the brain that causes us to react emotionally, which has significant implications regarding the relationship between your organization and your customers. The Corporate Executive Board (CEB) partnered with Google to study emotion’s role for 3,000 B2B customers. They found that although branding is still an essential component of a successful strategy, only 14% of the buyers perceived a valuable difference regarding brands’ business value.
All of this leads to the conclusion that you can be doing everything right from a product, pricing, and marketing perspective and still run up against a disconnect with your customer if you do not understand how their state of mind affects their purchasing decisions.
The customer experience is an accumulation of memories, emotions, and relationships.
A crucial ingredient to enterprise sales success is providing a superior customer experience; your product or pricing structure is not always at the core of this experience. Instead, it is an amalgamation of how your people and your company make the customer feel.
In the sales process, this translates into storytelling. But it is not just about telling the most compelling story about your product and value proposition; the customer needs to quickly understand where they fit into the account to maximize engagement. This is representative of a very human desire. We all want to feel like we are understood and that our problems and concerns hold accurate weight for those we are conversing with. When you can successfully make your clients feel this, it creates a long-term culture of trust that forms the backbone of the customer experience.
Customers perceive value differently than sellers.
Salespeople are trained to know their product’s value: what problem it solves, why it is the best option for solving the said problem, and why the pricing structure makes sense for the client. But limiting yourself to this view fails to consider the perceived value of the transaction for the customer.
Some experts separate a customer’s perceived value into three categories. First is a company value, which includes all benefits gained by the company, such as efficiency improvements or cost savings. Then there is professional value, which covers how a product can make the client’s job easier. Finally, there is identity value, which many argue is the most important because it speaks directly to the customer as a person, not an employee.
Sales largely depend on recruiting mobilizers.
One of the reasons that demonstrating identity value to your customer is crucial is the increasing dependence on mobilizers. Enterprises in the 21st century are becoming increasingly complex, technology now often links business units that previously had little interaction with each other, and managers and directors have access to more information than ever before.
These factors increase the number of stakeholders who have a say in the purchasing process, which is why it can be very advantageous to have a mobilizer who can advocate for you within the organization.
The customer journey is driven by small but significant moments
Aligning the timing of your sales process with the timing of the customer’s journey is one of the surest ways to close a deal. When the timing is off, it can derail a potential sale even when it seems like every other variable has been accounted for.
The problem is that evaluating the customer’s purchasing journey from start to finish can be a daunting task. Instead, it is better to consider it a series of moments where something you do or do not do can have a significant impact. That way, you must pay attention at each stage of the journey to ensure that your timelines are still aligned.
