Like so many things in 2020, the way buyers buy has changed completely.
We talked about this on a Sales Hacker webinar last month – here’s a quick rundown.
The bottom line? People aren’t going into work anymore. And they might not be going back to the office for a long time. They’re staying home. Or, like me, they’re moving to a completely new location – and then they’re staying home.
There’s been a mass migration out of expensive, dense cities like New York and San Francisco, and people aren’t coming back anytime soon. They’ll stay in “Zoom cities” like Tahoe, and this shift to a more manageable work/life balance might well be permanent.
That means they’re out of your physical area, and they might even be in a completely different time zone. Reaching them is much harder than it used to be.
So what does this shift mean for the new buyer journey? For vendors, for sellers, for marketers? What are the new norms you need to know?
- Asynchronous, buyer-led evaluations: Stop hiding your collateral behind another meeting. Tailor it to the buyer and situation and then give it to them! Let buyers buy.
- Executive involvement in most purchases: Creating projects and budget is harder in Covid, every mid-late deal should include a convo with their exec team (or it ain’t real!)
- Service packages (often free) attached to all deals: Headcounts got slashed this year, and the overlay position is the first to go. This means the vendor has to carry that weight.
- Land and expand beats the enterprise close: Stop trying to eat the elephant and just agree to meet for dinner. Adjust your entire approach and focus on small closes with pre-planned expansion conversations or experiments.
- ROI models can focus on cutting heads or on making up for lost staff: Consider everything I’ve said here. It’s all about reshaping how you package and deliver your product to account for a time of change. Stop wishing it was back to how it was> reimagine what your customers need now.
Accepting this new reality will help you adjust your new buyer journey too. How are you shifting your processes to meet your buyers where they are right now?
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Joe Caprio is a cofounder at Reprise.
He also advocates for ICW, ask him about it!
