Selling to the Digital B2B Buyer

July 22, 2010 by Robert Lesser | 7 Comments

The digital world is bringing great change to how buyers wish to interact with B2B sales teams.  

Buyers who are at ease in researching, communicating, collaborating and buying on the internet are choosing to do business differently.  

And I am not referring to the ‘Lost Generation’: those dying breed of executives who ask their executive assistants to print out their emails.  

In a recent blog post, Steve Woods notes that:   

As the emphasis on face-to-face interaction as a way to build trust decreases in lieu of other ways of building trust, the need to be “in the field” also decreases.  

With the recession, corporations are pressured to cut sales costs.  Steve Woods cites a stellar blog post from David Skok that compares the relative efficiency of different B2B selling models.  

But if B2B sales teams reduce the amount of face-to-face selling time in favor of more efficient sales models using the web and telephone, will B2B buyers be receptive?  

In fact, B2B buyers have been driving this change for some time and the pace is accelerating:  

  1. The buying process starts online and so do sales meetings -  Given that most buying is initiated with online search, buyers are naturally becoming more accepting of interactions with sales via web conference, email and online chat.   These buyers expect a fast response from an informed sales rep and will not wait for the time it takes to schedule an in-person meeting.
  2. The digital buyer prefers data to voice -   The social B2B buyer is more than likely on Facebook at home and at work,  on email and LinkedIn.  The buyer favors producing content that  is written (data) and not spoken (voice).  This week Facebook announced that  it has reached 500 million users. LinkedIn has over 70 million members worldwide.  Not only is this communication data-driven but it is now mostly mobile: mobile data eclipsed voice traffic in December 2009.
  3. The buyer is not at the office – How you can you meet face-to-face when your prospect is not at the office?    The B2B buyer’s office is often in motion (e.g. plane, trains & automobiles) or a home office.    The door to your customer is opened through their mobile device and not a fixed position PC.
  4. The buyer is time-starved – Buyers face inordinate demands on their time.  Meeting face-to-face is becoming less frequent due to jam-packed schedules.   The Corporate Leadership Councial found that the “average ‘job footprint’ (what a worker is expected to do) has increased by a third since the beginning of the recession” (see the Economist for more details).   In  the new book “Snap Selling“, Jill Konrath diagnoses the buyer as suffering from:    Frazzled Customer Syndrome, a debilitating condition brought on by excessive workloads, 24/7 availability, information overload, lack of sleep, and job-related stress.
  5. The World (of Buyers) is Flat – Evaluation teams are dispersed across the country and even around the world.     Meeting face-to-face with all team members is not a possibility given the dispersed nature of buying teams.

Do you sense that buyers are less reluctant to meet in-person?   What are you seeing out there in the market? 

Related Posts By Robert Lesser 
Destructive B2B Sales Practices 
The Buyer is Alway’s Right. (Not!) 
Use Outbound Marketing to Target these 5 Buyer Types

Posted in Sales 2.0, buyer behavior, inside sales, outbound marketing, sales enablement, telesales Tagged , , , , |

Savvy Buying of B2B Data

June 17, 2010 by Robert Lesser | Leave a comment

An Interview with Ruth P. Stevens and Bernice Grossman

I am pleased to welcome Ruth P.  Stevens and Bernice Grossman, two well recognized B2B direct marketing experts.    Ruth P. Stevens consults on customer acquisition and retention, teaches marketing at Columbia Business School and blogs at HBR.org. 

Bernice Grossman created DMRS Group an independent marketing database consultancy.

Ruth & Bernice…thanks for joining me today.    The B2B community has found a lot of value in the research that your organizations have conducted in database marketing.

Over the years,  we have seen a large shift in the way that B2B sales and marketing folks buy data.

How has the buying of data by B2B organizations changed ?

Bernice (BG):      B2B organizations used to only rely on telephone marketing, space advertising or direct mail.  Now email and social media have been added to the mix.  Previously data buys were concentrated from two sources – controlled circulation magazines and compiled sources.  Now B2B marketers have access to Co-op’s – where response and transaction-type data are also available.  B2B buying of data has finally caught up to the buying of consumer data!

One of the more exciting opportunities to come along for B2B are the on-line and user generated data sources like Jigsaw, NetProspex, ZoomInfo  and others.  The user generated, i.e, where the user is incented to provide contact information “in trade” for like information as well as on-line sources where the web is scraped and info from various URL’s is captured.  Finally, sources that are close to up-to-date!  This is information that has always eluded the B2B marketer. Compiled files and even controlled circulation files were out-of-date by the time they got to the marketer – especially the user generated data is a real find. 

B2B organizations need to be proactive in planning their data purchases yet data buying is often a last minute tactic.    Online data provides instant gratification and in some ways creates more issues.  What is your perspective?

Ruth (RPS): You are making a good point.  It’s tragic.   But the fact that data is more accessible can’t really be blamed.  It’s uninformed (or misguided) marketers who are the problem.  We all know that good targeting drives at least 50% of results in lead generation, but some marketers get so caught up in the other stuff –the offer and the copy/design– that they simply neglect the data.  Let’s hope they are reading your blog and getting some inspiration to adjust their priorities. 

What are the biggest data pitfalls that B2B organizations face in buying data?   How can these be addressed?

BG:  The biggest pitfalls are several:

  1. accuracy is difficult to judge up-front
  2. in-depth coverage of any vertical with complete firmographic detail is still lacking
  3. learning the truth about the source of some B2B data files is still difficult

The only way I address these issues is through testing the data and asking lots of questions about the source / ownership of the data – and test results and the answers have to “pass muster” – if not, I don’t use the data.

What is the best way to buy data?

RPS: To test a variety of vendors.  For cold prospecting, order a statistically projectable sample for your campaign.  For data append, take a sample of your file and send it to several vendors to assess match rate and accuracy. 

What steps would you recommend a client take to appending data?     What are the leading B2B suppliers in this area?

RPS: The granddaddies are D&B and InfoGroup.  But Jigsaw is coming up rapidly as an exciting new data source, and one that is especially strong in the area of individual contacts.

There are a lot of data houses that offer data appending services.    How do you recommend working with those that provide these services?  

We have produced a white paper on this subject (click here this free white paper)

Appending services should be tested.  If the marketer wants to append to their existing file from a data house I suggest sending an identical test file to all of the vendors and asking them to do the append and send back the data – promising not to use the test data for anything other than testing.  Then compare the hit rate, match rate and coverage rate to determine who to use.  It is not a question of the data housed at the append service it is a question of how well they can match the marketer’s data to their’s and what that hit, match and coverage rate is.

What is your perspective on buying lists and data quality?

RPS: When you consider that B2B data degrades at the rate of 4% to 6% a month, everyone’s file is at risk.  But in our recent study we found that the data available from compilers was surprisingly accurate.  The problem, in fact, was coverage.  Most of the vendors were missing records on important individual contacts. 

My perspective is test, test, test.  If the source that you want to use does not have sufficient data that will match to your file for append, cleanse and/or add – then let the buyer beware.  I believe it is incumbent on the marketer – the buyer of these services to be able to discern data quality – only testing will create an informed buyer.

Do you expect that B2B marketers will continue to use online data sources Jigsaw or NetProspex in the same way for list creation?

BG: Yes, they already are.  Some B2B marketers are fully subscribing to Jigsaw and/or NetProspex and are developing “look alike” prospect files for list creation.  In addition to using these sources to expand their contacts and the information about their contacts, most specifically email and soon cell phone information, the subscription sources are becoming good list creation sources as well.

Do you have any advice on how resources should be allocated on improving a house file vs. buying lists? 

RPS: Resources for house files should be allocated for making sure that complete and total information is contained, managed and updated.  Resources should also be allocated to the house file side for the software to access, manipulate, query, select, export, import and analyze.  The balance of the resources can then be allocated to buying lists, and/or buying data.  I contend that the majority of the resources should be allocated in-house.

Bernice addressed this, and I agree with her.  I would just add that a critically important step that is often neglected in B2B is “data discovery,” a process by which marketers identify the data elements they need, and then figure out how to go get them.  Usually first by append, and then filling in the gaps by outbound contact through phone or email to gather the additional points. 

Thanks Ruth and Bernice for your sage advice.       

Resources

Database Marketing Whitepapers

Online Data is Mainstream – Acquiring Minds Blog Post

Comparing B2B Online Data Sources – New Research – Acquiring Minds Blog Post

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Destructive B2B Sales Practices

May 17, 2010 by Robert Lesser | 6 Comments

 

New research from McKinsey & Company identifies destructive sales practices and prioritizes what customers want from B2B sales organizations.

The research is focused on end users and is statistically significant: McKinsey interviewed 1,252 purchasing decision-makers of high tech products and services at small, medium and large business in  the US and Western Europe. 

Research on end users and on this scale is relatively rare in the B2B world.   

Here are some of the key research findings from McKinsey:

  1. The buyer’s experience with sales and product or service features were the most important factors in a purchase decison – not price.        (All the more interesting given that the survey was conducted during the recession).
  2. A high performance sales force can boost share of customer by an average of 8 to 15 percent.
  3. The two most destructive sales behaviors were inadequate product knowledge and excessive customer contact.

In my mind, there are a number of considerations for a B2B sales organization:

  1. Quantifying the Impact - For a sales organization to change, the impact from poor sales practices will need to be defined.    The impact of an 8 to 15 percent customer share increase (per McKinsey) is substantial, especially for high ticket, complex B2B solutions.     Prospect and customer surveys (e.g. Win/Loss) on their sales experience can be used to quantify the impact of the sales experience.
  2. Better Sales Training - Training on solution knowledge and how best to engage customers are two key training areas for sales.    McKinsey calls for a centralization of content development and creation of compelling value propositions.    This seems to be a call for marketing and sales to align their efforts better on messaging.   Rather than grand training programs, it’s interesting that McKinsey calls for experiential training and on-the-job training.
  3. Raising the Bar on Sales Personnel -  Customers are empowered by online information sources and social networks.      Knowledgeable sales reps who bring a consultative approach and value to customers are a much better fit to today’s customer.      This heightened requirement should help to raise the bar on the calibre of B2B salespeople.
  4. Innovative Sales Methods & Tools - Innovative approaches to sales and lead generation enable sales to be smarter and faster.     Done right, sales can be more proactive and more meaningful in touching customers.    The risk is that customer concerns on the frequency of contact could increase should sales not add value or act smarter with that contact.

There are a number of events that could perpetuate rather than reduce destructive sales practices:

  1. The Sales Funding Squeeze- According to IDC’s Tech Barometer, in 2010 investment in sales will again outstrip IT investment.    This gap between revenue and costs will pressure sales organizations to scrutinize training expenditures.   
  2. Unrealistic Quotas- some of the comments on the McKinsey research pointed out that unrealistic quotas and short term horizons create destructive B2B Sales Practices.   According to CSO Insights, in 2010 sales quotas continue to rise even though attainment of quota was lower in 2008 versus the prior year and sales resources are less.
  3. Tech Mergers & Acquisitions - In Q1 2010, $68.8 billion of tech deals were announced versus $19.2 billion for the period a year earlier (source: Reuters).      More sales forces will be merged and rationalized consuming resources and creating distraction .      A recovering economy will create more opportunities for salespeople.   In this environment, sales education will be adversely impacted.

 

Comments Are Welcome

Are we on the path to resolving destructive sales behaviors?     What action will it take to be successful?

Resources

Blog Post on the Sales Renaissance
Webinar on the Sales Renaissance featuring LivePerson, Ariba and TriNet

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Posted in Sales 2.0, buyer behavior, outbound marketing, sales, sales enablement Tagged , , , , , , |