While it may be no surprise to you as a sales leader, B2B buyer behavior has shifted dramatically in the past few years. There are 3 game changing reasons why sales enablement equips organizations that are slowly adopting these mandatory shifts, while urging themto adapt in a rapidly-changing sales landscape.
Several key themes are contributing to this B2B buyer behavior shift that is anticipated to put one million US salespeople out of a job by 2020. With this movement in the landscape, it is critical for B2B sales leaders to assess how their B2B sales and marketing strategies are supporting inspired customer experiences that meet the evolving customer need for self-service, eCommerce and a sales rep interaction that is consultative and not simply transactional.
B2B SALES ENABLEMENT EQUIPS SALES TO PROVIDE SELF-SERVICE EXPERIENCES
An increasing majority of B2B buyers now claim that buying online is more convenient than buying from a rep. With this demand for a self-service sales experience, B2B sales and marketing strategies must embrace a fundamental shift in the role of these reps. In today’s sales landscape, buyers are relying more heavily on self-sought research versus talking to reps to learn about products and services. With buyers preferring to do their own pre-sales research by a factor of 3 to 1, how are your B2B strategies equipping sales reps to create value by anticipating the evaluation criteria to move forward in the buyer journey?
B2B sales enablement is the set of practices, processes and platforms that boost performance to drive increased revenue through new customer acquisition. Sales enablement assesses your B2B sales and marketing strategy by how it supports funneling strategically-relevant information about your products and services to customers. Sales enablement defines areas where sales reps can more effectively supplement a buyer’s existing knowledge to accelerate their movement through buyer journey to secure a sale.
B2B SALES ENABLEMENT PROPELS SALES INTO THE FUTURE TOWARD ECOMMERCE EXPERIENCES
Nearly 93% of B2B buyers say they prefer to buy online rather than from a sales rep when they have decided what to buy. This is a dramatic shift away from the traditional B2B sales and marketing strategy that encourages sales reps to focus on building ongoing relationships to directly and actively contribute to a sale.
With fewer and fewer B2B buyers contacting a sales rep during any part of the buyer journey, it is critical for your B2B sales and marketing strategy to expand channel reach to include online-accessible information. This assists sales-rep-shy customers with a purchase decision. B2B sales enablement identifies is the readiness of your sales organization to support seamless eCommerce experiences for your customers and to maximize your sales force resources. Through clearly-defined practices for your sales team, B2B sales enablement can propel your organization ahead of your competition by creating real-time, self-service eCommerce experiences.
B2B SALES ENABLEMENT POSITIONS SALES AS THE CONSULTANT IN AN INSPIRED CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Ushering in this new era of digitally-enabled B2B selling is the sales rep that takes the approach of consulting rather than order taking. These consultative sales reps that compliment a B2B buyer’s online research of your products and services will thrive in an evolving landscape. An adaptive B2B sales and marketing strategy will position reps to be consultants that are impervious to the threats of advancing technology and changing buyer behaviors.
Sales enablement can position sales reps to play this continued crucial role as a consultant in B2B buyer interactions. According to Forrest Research, these “Enlighten Me” buyers need a seller that can do the following:
- Understand their unique challenges
- Explain the nuances of a company’s products & services
- Support a customer in bringing together other factors like internal stakeholders & budget
A consultant helps a confused buyer in a complex buying environment weigh additional unseen considerations, creating an inspired customer experiences that helps buyers move closer to a purchase.