We teamed up with Wiser Elite to co-host a mind-blowing event delving into the exciting world of buyer enablement. The event was graced by some top-notch panelists in the buyer/sales enablement space!
Rory Sadler, Co-Founder & CEO at trumpet 🎺
Malvina EL-Sayegh, Director, Sales Enablement at ReachDesk
Aaron Evans, Co-Founder & Head of Training and Enablement at Flowstate
Alice de Courcy, Chief Marketing Officer at Cognism
As the B2B landscape evolves, customers are taking a more proactive approach by seeking information on their own, making their way through the buyer journey on their own terms, interacting with multiple touch points along the way. With so much noise and competition, it can be challenging to capture the attention of buyers today who are less time
So, the question is: how can you break through and make meaningful connections with your prospects?
Discovery fatigue, how to tackle it?
Buyers are just not in the mood for lengthy discovery session. Especially when the seller is asking questions that they could easily find on their website or social media channels.
Malvina says “A big focus is how to enable SDRs, AE’s, AM, CS to have conversations that add value rather than asking questions that frustrate the buyer, its how you use those 35-40 minutes effectively”.
Sellers just need to get to the point…
“Show me what you do, show me the product, show me the features and then we can have a conversation around it”.
The age of “information overload”
Rory explains “Sellers are using content as a tool but not focusing on the value behind it”.
Give people with something tangible, something that the buyer can actually connect with; customer stories, data points, expert knowledge.
“What buyers are craving from sales people at the moment…They want to know what those icebergs in the distance are, they want to know something they cant just access through the internet” says Aaron.
“We don’t need evolution of sales, we need devolution of sales, think back to 30 years ago when sales people were the experts on the problems in their market”
Rather than churning out content and crossing your fingers for success, strategically place your content at pivotal points along the buyer journey with more thought for your buyer.
Enablement & the buyer ecosystem
In short, enablement should exist throughout the entire journey with your buyer, from start to finish and beyond!
According to PWC's research “86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience“.
Rory adds “Having that mindset is not an ‘if’ its a ‘must’ now, from that very first touch point”
Make the buyer journey easy to navigate, using collaborative tools that allow you and your champion, stakeholders and decision makers to get from A to B to over the line.
Utilising data to predict buyer intent
Wouldn't it be ideal if you could anticipate buyers’ needs and drive conversion of the back of those insights?
Well, leveraging the power of intent can help you paint a pretty clear picture.
According the Gartner “Prospects spend 50% of their time seeking information from third-party sources”. You can easily gather data from your prospects' web searches, the pages they visit, and the content they consume.
For your post demo follow-ups and beyond, we recommend going for live links (like a trumpet Pod) that gives you valuable insights on its open rate, number of opens, shares, and so much more.
“You cant always be in their shoes, in their office seeing who they’re talking to, so leveraging tech will help you to unlock that data so you can spend time on the right opportunities and invest in the right champions, making their life easier”.
Sellers should act as an agent
The “hard sell” doesn't quite cut it in 2024.
A lot of salespeople are eager to discuss the competitive advantage, or might ask you questions like “What keeps you up at night?” (yawn).
Let your guard down, disarm the prospect and take the pressure out of the conversation, the last thing they’ll expect from you is “I might need to know more about what you’re using now, just to see if we‘re positioned to help you…”
Focus on giving your prospects a positive experience, regardless of whether they choose to go with you or not. Who knows, you might even cross paths again down the road!
Mutual action plans
Also called go-live plans, mutual success plans, joint execution plans, or just MAPs. They basically help get everyone on the same page during the buyer journey.
“Its not just about creating accountability, its also painting a picture of a timeline, these are the steps involved, and its just giving clarity to the buyer. If you can help them understand what lies ahead, it provides piece of mind” says Rory.
Malvina adds “The final point on the plan should never be; signature, it should always what happens post signature”.