Why B2B Industrial Sales Methods Lag

And where to start fixing it - 

Traditional B2B industrial sales face challenges. Tech now leads in sales excellence, leaving traditional industries behind. Four key trends have permanently altered the customer landscape, and sales methods.

1.  Customers research their problems differently today.

AI and digital tools transform how customers research solutions.

Research continues to show that customers delay vendor engagement, preferring independent research.

Customers need new approaches at the start of their buying process.

2.  Customers are overloaded; long on data and short on perspective

In the past, creating Awareness and educating customers on your solutions was helpful. No longer.

Customers are already aware of your solution, and at the same time, they’re overloaded with information they’re trying to process. And customers that are overloaded make fewer and poorer buy decisions.

They need insight, not education.

3.  Instability reshapes customer market perceptions.

Customers are struggling to understand how to think about products. A perfect example is products with sustainable content. Used the be the hot topic; now consumer sentiment is cooling off.

Uncertainty breeds indecision. If you can’t help your customer figure out how to think about sustainability, they will.

Maybe they will favor your solutions; maybe they won’t.

4.   Even strong value doesn't spur decisions.

The neuroscience is clearly showing, that a clear value case, is not enough to cause a customer to act. There are many reasons for this, but the reality is that indecision is your biggest competition.

This is especially true when customers must champion your option to a large organization to get it implemented.

Traditional Sales & Marketing methods focus on education and generating awareness. Think Selection Guides, Product Brochures, About Us decks. Solution Selling brought in value cases; so add Case-Making to the repertoire.

And yet, awareness long ago ceased to be a barrier to buying. And case-making doesn’t work if the customer is uncertain, or overloaded with information.

What’s Needed?

Customer’s are paralyzed by overwhelm and not ready for your pitch; and Awareness isn’t the barrier anymore. Then old sales systems are oriented to the wrong problem.

What’s missing is a concept that didn’t even exist when most traditional selling methods were developed, and as a result, aren’t addressed in their methods:

Sense-making.

The barrier to customer buying behavior has shifted. Customers stuck in information overload need help “making sense” of the information, within the context of the problems they’re trying to solve.

They need reps who can

1. listen and understand the customer problems
2. acknowledge, be familiar with, and most importantly to be credible to speak to the options customers have
3. frame customer’s thinking to help them determine best options (even if their solution isn’t the best)
4. create a tailored options that addresses the customers’ critical pain points

This kind of ideal relationship shows up in the research; both:

• in what customers hate and want from reps AND
• the kind of behaviors top-producing reps exhibit
  

But it doesn’t show up in every major selling system out there.

We know; we’ve looked.

• Value and Solution selling depend on the value case, and research shows case-making is a very ineffective persuasion technique.
• "Challenger" selling, kind of does, in asking reps to begin bring insights. But customers don’t actually respond well to being “challenged.”

Actioning the Insight

In contrast, consultative techniques; however, have been shown to have that element of sense-making built into their methodologies. They address it with clear methods and behaviors.

My advice for you as a commercial leader is simply to start paying attention to this middle ground in your customers, between awareness and decision. What behaviors do you reps exhibit? Where do their methods fail to close? Most reps can listen. Most can’t frame issues credibly for a customer. Which means they only close customers who already think like they do.

I was a firm advocate of Value Selling techniques. No longer. The value case is still important; just poorly deployed.

In my next post, I'll share my journey from Value Selling to consultative methods.

Until next week,

Kendall -

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