Buyer, will you remember me?

It is a curious thing. Most B2B buyers do not perceive sellers as different from one another. Given how much work goes into the development of products and services, this feels like a bucket of cold water over the head. In our work with sales teams, we hear, “but I’m relational” or “I have a consultative style.” There are individual performers who are excellent communicators and find a way to be memorable, but many sellers rely on stereotypical sales interactions.

Sales performance surveys from Gartner to Sales Insights Labs have been telling us for years that salespeople tend to come in and use very similar talk tracks, so, basically, they could be selling the same thing for the same company — at least, in the buyer’s mind.

Personalization is only going to get more necessary

Buyers look for alignment between your brand’s messaging and their requirements. In their research, they may engage with your brand’s chatbot or other elements of your sales enablement tech stack. However, the current state of technology, while impressive, often does not provide complete information to the buyer. Adding to this information gap is the buyer-perceived risk in their choice.
To mitigate the perceived risk and gather additional information, buyers will activate other information pathways that include talking with peers, consulting with industry experts, and meeting with a selected number of vendor sales agents. When your sales team is invited in for a conversation about your brand’s offerings, keep in mind that it is still early in the buyer’s journey, and they seek only guidance. Even when the buyer is more committed to your product or service, they want to be heard, seen and understood first.

Tailoring without manipulating

One of the watchouts for personalization is the potential for inauthenticity. Salesforce stated in their most recent State of Sales Report that 79% of B2B buyers require salespeople to act as trusted advisors who add value. This corresponds with recent survey findings from SBI, which focused on deal friction and how buyers want sellers to be able to tie more than just the immediate goals to the value of the product or service being sold.

By presenting information in chunks and tying their immediate and long-term goals to the capabilities of your product or service, you tailor the conversation to their interests, aspirations, and concerns. Salespeople can appear inauthentic and manipulative when they focus on the immediate goals and emphasize the urgency of achieving them. Trusted advisors use pacing and confirmation to tailor the conversation to what the buyer communicates is most important. This avoids going into full-on presentation mode and personalizes the sales conversation.

Here are some ideas to incorporate into your sales conversations to present as authentic and trustworthy:

• Prepare, prepare, prepare. Know who you are talking with, any interests, or other information you have about them and their organization
• Use a variety of conversational tools to show curiosity about them and their organization
  • Listen for and confirm long-term goals and how they tie into the immediate goals
• Ask about questions and concerns before they become objections
• Add stories, use cases, or customer examples that fit the conversation
• Ask if they would like to know more about your product/service later in the conversation
• Be yourself.

Will you remember me?

There is still a moment when you talk about contracts and pricing, but personalizing sales conversations makes buying decisions smoother. Maya Angelou is often quoted, “…people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” While you do want your buyers to remember what you said, they will remember how you made them feel. Business decisions are made with both logic and emotion. By letting go of selling and adopting the mindset of advising, it is more likely that your sales conversations will have momentum, clarity, and direction. Now, that is something you can put into a forecast.

When you think about sales effectiveness at your organization, does it seem like you are close but just missing those unique elements that give you that competitive edge? Looking for a way to understand how your buyer thinks, decides, and reveals information? At The Nova Consulting Group, we believe that professional selling is a craft. With the Advanced Sales Conversation©, you have those missing elements that move your salespeople from competency to mastery. With our deep understanding of what makes and sustains high-performance organizations, we provide integrated solutions that do not replace your sales methodology and yet advance a progressive selling mindset. Be bolder, more insightful, and get results. To learn more about how to master the craft of sales and encourage sustainable high performance, call  (617) 933-7249 or email info@novaconsultinggrp.com.

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