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In February of 2006, Market-Partners Inc. CEO and founder, Martyn Lewis, published his first book, Sales Wise. This loose collection of 32 vignettes not only contains our first ever thoughts on the Customer Buying Journey, but also a great story about a flying Volvo I am becoming convinced only funny to salespeople. Now, before you add several copies to your Amazon cart, eager to hear punchlines about magic Swedish cars, this article is not meant to be a book recommendation. At best, Sales Wise today serves mostly as an interesting piece of corporate history given how much more we know about how customers buy and why they don’t.

Yes, 15 years can certainly feel like a lifetime ago, especially when I glanced at the old tag line in Chapter 13 – “Selling from the Inside-Out.” Yet despite how much has changed just within the last 12 months, that doesn’t mean we should throw out everything we know about the Buying Journey. In fact, it is quite the opposite.

Here are three Outside-In (or dare I say, Inside-Out) lessons from Sales Wise more relevant than ever.

1. www.com Is Not The Friend Of The Sales Professional

Back when Martyn was selling computer systems in the late 80s, his team had an important saying about the role of marketing material: “the selling stops when the brochure is delivered.” Sales Wise was quick to recontextualize this adage, highlighting the parallels between product pamphlets and your corporate web address.

With your URL closer to your fingertips than ever before, it is crucial to remind ourselves what websites are – excellent marketing tools. Referring someone to your domain during a conversation will not help you discover what your prospect is after, nor will it help you play a larger role in defining their job requirements. Anytime you hand a client your virtual “brochure” in a call, you are no longer managing the Buying Journey. You are actively relinquishing control over it.

2. Do You Know Why Someone Will Buy From You?

The transition to virtual has simultaneously made customers more and less accessible. On one hand, it is easier to put something on their calendar – despite your Zoom meeting being only one of a half-dozen they will attend this afternoon. It should be no surprise then that our latest research found buyers and key decision makers are looking for more focused content than previously thought.

The Sales Wise solution is simple. Imagine your prospect just called to say you lost the business – in sixty seconds, could you clearly express your value proposition in your customer’s words? If you can’t, then it’s time to condense, edit, and polish your value proposition around their Customer’s Buying Journey. As Martyn put succinctly in the book, “If you don’t know why your prospect would buy from you, don’t expect the prospect to know.”

3. Yours Sincerely

While the repetition of writing emails and LinkedIn messages definitely breeds efficiency, it can sometimes result in us sending something completely on autopilot. I have personally received a concerning number of copy and pasted communications still addressed to their original recipient. As much as I try to take these mistakes in stride, I cannot help but think of the old Sales Wise quote, “If it’s worth writing, it’s worth writing properly.”

Electronic communication seems more detached, but regardless of what closing salutation you use, you have stilled signed that message. Although our interviews show customers are expecting quicker communication in 2021 compared to other years, they also believe, “even an email is a request [their] time.” So before you press send, stretch your legs, refill your coffee, and reread your email one more time to make sure you are putting your best foot forward.

Want to know how customers are buying differently in the virtual world? Our latest course, Outside-In Selling: Mastering The Virtual Sale, is designed to help you increase your sales effectiveness, productivity, and closing ratio in the online space. View the offering and download the course description here.

There can be little doubt that the Covid-19 pandemic and its associated lock down has had a dramatic impact on the buyer-seller relationship. With the inability to make face-to-face sales calls, and customers preoccupied with their own disrupted lives, sale teams have certainly had their work cut out for them. It’s safe to say that the success formula for this new world goes well beyond learning the tips and tricks of how to use Zoom. Although we are seeing an unprecedent demand for training on these collaboration platforms, this only prepares sales teams to meet a small fraction of the challenges they now face.

Like any sales hurdle, Market-Partners Inc. for 25 years has started with the Outside-In approach. That is to start with exploring how customers are buying differently. Using our primary research approaches we have been out talking, or rather listening, to buyers and decision makers across numerous industries about how their buying processes has changed. Our findings reveal that customers, just like us, are juggling many balls as they adjust to working from home, collaborating in different ways, and participating in an endless stream of video calls. So while they are becoming more comfortable with virtual meetings, we also heard, with regularity, five critical things they now want from their sales teams.

1. Do not waste my time.

First and foremost, we heard that the days of hour-long meetings with social chit chat are over. Maybe customers enjoyed taking the time to chat over coffee or lunch but now they want much shorter and more focused calls and messages. One buyer shared that, “even an e-mail is a request for my time,” lamenting the need to wade through information irrelevant to his situation. Customers much prefer concise requests and interactions that bring clear value to the table.

2. Be knowledgeable.

While this would have been good advice pre-pandemic, the expectation that salespeople be knowledgeable about their customers’ business and situation has only risen in importance. Buyers told us that they’re doing their homework and turn to their keyboard more often when looking for information about an offering. They are hoping you do the same.

3. Responsive follow up.

Customers also informed us that they are busier than ever, usually spending their days jumping from virtual meeting to virtual meeting. Without the presence of a face-to-face, they shared that they are more likely to simply move on to the next topic and sometimes fail to remember salient points and actions from a meeting. The salespeople they most respected  were those who followed up with summaries and responded to question within hours, not days.

4. Have patience.

Ironically, but understandably, customers stressed that salespeople be patient. Whereas they want fast follow up, they do not respect being badgered. As stated previously, customers are finding an increased number of responsibilities working from home, and not every rep gives them the breathing room they need.

5. Make it easy for me.

Last but not least, customers are looking or salespeople who keep things simple not ones that add to their workload. For example, they want the salesperson to bring the specific details of a proposal to them; not generalities or lists of options. Salespeople should think through their situation and be able to give them a complete answer, response, or proposal, rather than leave them with more work to do.

From our interviews with buyers, we advocate that in today’s virtual world what happens before and after a sales call contributes far more to a deal’s success than ever before. Prior to a sales call the salesperson must make sure they have conducted a deep discovery, planned the call at a level of detail, and gained validation with their customer that they are on target. Thorough preparation also helps keep calls concise, focused, and valuable for the customer. As always, follow up with clients, but make sure your messages respect their time and responsibilities.

In this two-dimensional world, the key to success is shifting our approach away from the hour-long meetings that worked face to face, to shorter, more concentrated bursts of customer interaction. It is time to start thinking Outside-In. If your market is telling you they are looking for sprints, don’t show up trying to run a marathon.

Interested in learning more about selling in the two-dimensional world? Our latest course, Outside-In Selling: Mastering The Virtual Sale, is designed to help you increase your sales effectiveness, productivity, and closing ratio in the online space. View the offering and download the course description here.

Customer Experience, or as it is fashionably known CX, is one of the hottest trends in marketing. Everyone seems to be talking about the customer experience. Its roots, in the retail world, are simple to understand and compelling to embrace. The business benefits associated with a happy customer have been well understood for decades. Now we are starting to see the concept of measuring and managing the customer experience extend into the B2B world and into the arena beyond simple transactional selling into what is traditionally called the complex sale; the world where the selling extends beyond one buyer and one transaction.  The benefits associated with this customer-first thinking are now well documented, but we have also found that the insight gained from understanding the process from the customer’s situation can be dramatic. 

We have found that there are five fundamentals to consider when embarking upon a CX program in the world of the complex sale. 

1. It’s all about the Customer Buying Journey

Any consideration of customer experience, or experiences, must be preceded with gaining a full understanding of the buying journey. To look at customer experiences in isolation of the total buying process is to miss far more than you see. A lack of understanding of the entire end-to-end buying journey – including key players, motivations, anxieties, decision making style, buying activities and dependencies – results in having no context for any individual experience.

I have used the expression “end-to-end” and I want to underscore the importance of the wider view of the buying journey. The buying journey starts with some trigger event, activity or experience, that sets the wheels in motion and ends, if it indeed ever ends, with the customer having used, or fully using, the acquired offering. It is significantly longer than often believed, and the early and late activities are as important to understand as the activities that focus on direct interaction between the buyer and the seller.

2. Outside-In

Here’s one of those simple things to say; yet very hard to do. When you are mapping out the buying journey you must consider everything that the buyer does and why, when and how they may do it. Not what you hope or imagine they do when you are selling to them. There are two things here, firstly the concept of understanding all that they do, not just the touchpoints where they may interact with you or a potential supplier, but everything they do, and the likely sequence of those activities along their buying journey. Secondly, what they really do; not what you would like them to do or what seems logical.

We are yet to find any one company that has successfully mastered this “outside-In” view. It’s tough. You must really put yourself in the customer’s shoes and stay there. And, the only way to do that is to have some very candid and unbiased conversations with customers, as well as non-customers, in order to understand their world and all its idiosyncrasies. 

3. Startling Facts

With respect to the challenge, or the opportunity, of mapping and managing the buying journey, consider:

• Customers now complete more than 50% of the buying journey prior to talking to a salesperson

• Sales and Marketing are rarely involved in more than 15% of the total customer buying journey

• 90% of buyer concerns that can slow or stop a buying journey are never addressed by sales and marketing

• Buyers invariably understand the offering and the value it will deliver to their organization, and yet more than 70% of typical sales and marketing efforts are directed towards educating the buyers about the offering and the value it will deliver to their organization

• Buyers rarely see a supplier’s value propositions as either powerful or differentiated

4. The gold is in the details

Our research has shown, time and time again, that within a specific market, when buying a specific offering, buyers buy in remarkably similar ways. In fact, that is how I now recommend defining a market:  buyers buying in the same way. If you find a variance in how your buyers are buying, it is more than likely that you have more than one market and would benefit from thinking of it as such.  When considering the buying journey, it is not effective to simply use some generic steps. This can be useful for thinking about the overall phases a buyer may go through, but you must get into the details. The gold associated with understanding the buying journey is in the details, for example:  which key players get involved, when; how motivations change through the buying journey; how decisions are made; where and when the concerns are likely to arise.

5. What’s it all about

What, then, is the overall goal of a CX program, or of understanding the buying journey? Although it’s a very nice goal to think that we are going to give all our customers a wonderful experience, it’s really about the bottom line. This may sound crass, but when it works, it’s great for our customers and great for us. The true win/win. But to return to the topic of what we are trying to do, it’s all about positively managing the buying journey. Perhaps incredibly, there are four, and only four, possible things we can do to positively impact the buying journey. Like the three, and only three laws of motion, we have the four Selling Imperatives. These are:

• Initiate: To motivate a buyer to start a buying journey

• Expedite: To motivate a buyer to move through their buying journey quicker than they otherwise would

• Complete: To motivate a buyer so that the probability of them completing their buying journey, and buying from you, increases

• Augment: To motivate a buyer to invest more than they otherwise would as a result of their buying journey

That’s it, just four things. Every investment or activity in sales and marketing, every initiative in a CX program, must come down to one, of more, of these four Imperatives. 

A Checklist for Success

Now we know that any CX program must be firmly based on a foundation of understanding the target market’s customer buying journey, let’s look at the five-step recipe for success.

1. Map the target market’s end-to-end buying journey

Ensure you have complete and deep knowledge of the actual market’s buying journey. All that the buyer is likely to do, the touch points, the key players that get involved, their motivations, concerns, decision making style and dependencies. 

2. Understand current reality

Assess how you currently interact, directly or indirectly, across the entire buying journey. This likely will result in some surprises and shocks. Go back to the startling facts to see how you are trending compared to the overall state of the union. Herein is the opportunity for most of the organizations. Take the focus away from your offering and trying to convince the world of its inherent superiority and value. Instead place it on positively managing the customer buying journey and helping the customer to buy and gain full utilization from their acquisition. 

3. Determine your Market Engagement Strategy

Determine how you want to be involved, or even change, the market’s buying journey. But be honest; you must be relevant to the customer and deliver unquestionable value for the customer to want to engage with you. This is where you can design the classic elements of the CX program, how do you provide what the customer requires and expects (maybe even more), when, where and how they want it, in a way that is natural and compelling for them. At the same time, never forget the four sales imperatives. In what way will you positively impact the buying journey to deliver that mutually beneficial equation for the customer and for your own organization?

4. Organize

Based on a clear understanding of the customer buying journey and your associated market engagement strategy, the resources of the organization, and across the entire eco-system including partners and channels, should be organized and then enabled, competent, supported, motivated, compensated and managed to deliver on that strategy. Another of those easier said than done things, and perhaps somewhat aspirational, but none-the-less it must be the envisioned end state. 

5. Manage and Measure

Any CX program is not a one-time event. It must constantly be managed and measured. Even if you could somehow implement the perfect approach; markets, competitors, economics and customers don’t remain static. The system is in constant change. However, based upon a clear understanding of the buying journey, changes can be quickly detected and responses to such changes implemented across the organization. 

There can be little doubt that the current focus on CX is good across businesses. However, when considering and implementing a CX program in the more complex B2B world where the buyer/seller relationship is not based on a simple transaction; the focus must be placed on positively managing the specific market’s end-to-end customer buying journey. It is only by taking this wider view that the broader benefits associated with a CX program can be realized. The organizations that embrace this, not only as a part of their go-to-market strategy but as part of their culture, will win big. Those that don’t will find themselves in the downward spiral of price pressure and margin erosion. 

Those who know me or have read anything I have published in the last decade would know that I am always banging on about one thing – the need for sales organizations to surrender the focus on their own internal sales process and instead turn things outside-in by focusing on their customer’s actual buying journey. 

In our research we have talked to over 2,000 customers, and one of the many insights gained has been simply that customers in today’s world do not buy as a result of a sales person completing a sales process – they buy as a result of completing their own buying journey. You can have the best salesperson following the best sales process (whatever that may be) but that never guarantees that a customer will buy. The only guarantee is if a customer completes their buying journey – guess what – they buy. It is my belief that the singular mission for today’s sales organization must be to initiate, support and manage the customer through their end-to-end buying journey. 

I believe that this Outside-In approach can only succeed by gaining a deep understanding of exactly how a specific market will go about buying a particular offering. Not why they should – that quite frankly is the easy bit – but how they would buy and why they don’t. Based on the insight that such a deep dive into the customer buying journey never fails to deliver, an overall market engagement strategy can then be crafted. Let me offer you a glimpse of the dramatic results that are possible with this approach by offering seven simple ways in which you can start the transition to Outside-In. 

Let’s take seven straight-forward questions that sales leaders often ask a salesperson about a any sales opportunity. For each of these questions, let me invert them and offer an equivalent Outside-In question. I encourage you to try them. It isn’t as easy as you may expect; you may have to change the habits of a lifetime. But let’s give it a go, and instead of asking the “traditional” question I list below, start asking the Outside-In equivalent. 

I promise that you will see an immediate and dramatic result. It may not lead to what you want to hear. You may well discover that a deal that was forecast to close this month, doesn’t look so good. You may discover that deals that are stuck in the pipeline may be shouldn’t even be in the pipeline. However, would you prefer to discover these dark secrets now, or when it is too late do something about them

Here we go and let me know what happens.

1. Traditional Question: When will you close the deal?

Outside-In Question: When will the customer be able to make a commitment and sign the order?

This is a simple and dramatic one to start with. What would you prefer to know; when a salesperson thinks they can or should close the business, or when the customer will be able to buy? It should be the exact same thing, but it rarely is. The follow-on discussion is also very interesting. Exactly how much do we know about what has to happen for the customer to be able to commit?

2. Traditional Question: How’s that deal going?

Outside-In Question: Is the customer in a buying journey? How do you know?

You can hear a lot of stories about a particular deal, and your sales team can commit a lot of cycles to it, only to discover that the customer isn’t even in a buying journey. It happens more than many would like to admit. These are the deals that get stuck or are lost to “no decision”. The customer could have been educated or even entertained by the selling effort, but they were never in a buying journey.

3. Traditional Question: What do we have to do next on that deal?

Outside-In Question: What does the customer have to do next?

That first question leads to hearing the same things again and again, and likely lacks any real insight. However, how about looking into what the customer must do next to move things along through their buying journey. 

4. Traditional Question: How did it go? (Meeting/Presentation/Demo/Call)

Outside-In Question: What will the customer do as a result? (of the meeting/presentation/demo/call)

The only thing that matters with any customer interaction is how it impacts their overall buying journey. Asking how something went invites a lot of storytelling and may be some chest beating. However, asking about what the customer is going to as a result of the interaction dives a lot deeper into the situation and focuses on the objective of positively impacting that buying journey. 

5. Traditional Question: What step are you at in the sales process?

Outside-In Question: What step is the customer at in their buying process?

No comment necessary, I hope.

6. Traditional Question: Who’s the competition?

Outside-In Question: What alternatives is the customer considering?

The biggest competitor in today’s world is the customer doing nothing, staying with their status quo. Regardless of how great an offering may be and the undeniable value it can create for an organization, customers often opt to stay where they are. There are many reasons for this, and many customers turn down great offers every day. Customers don’t think about competitors – they think about their alternative approaches. It’s far more effective to think about the alternatives a customer would face than simply list your traditional competitors.   

7. Traditional Question: Who’s the decision maker?

Outside-In Question: How will the customer make their decision?

The days of the traditional decision maker are long gone. In today’s organizations, decisions are made through a dynamic network of decision influencers. We must stop thinking that there will be a single decision maker and start mapping out how a customer will arrive at a decision and what we need to do to support and manage that process.

There you have it. Seven questions you may ask each day. Invert each one and ask the Outside-In equivalent and see what happens. 

Let me know what happens and contact me for an easy Quick Reference Guide.