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Matching Your Sales Process to Your Buyer’s Buying Process

Think about the steps in your buying process when you buy something—a pair of sneakers, for instance. Something in your world gets your attention and you come to the conclusion: I need a new pair of sneakers. You start to go out and look, try a couple pairs on, go to the store, go to Amazon, etc. In that process, you remove doubt, because you’re actively looking. Then you start to consider it, lay it out and say, “Jeez, do I really need these? What pair do I need?” Ultimately, you buy a pair.

That’s a simple buying process.

In most sales, especially business-to-business sales, it’s more complex. In a previous blog, I’ve likened the sales process to a trip to the doctor’s office. Regardless of the product or service though, there’s a way to be successful: match up your sales process to the buyer’s buying process. In short, sell how people buy. Do this and you’ll be successful. Sound simple? It is and isn’t at the same time.

The Science and Art of Sales

As a sales professional, you take action to get somebody’s attention. You need to qualify them to see if they would fit business parameters. You have to engage the prospect in some kind of request for their time, ask them a series of questions that are really for their benefit, and get the buyer in a scenario where you can present them with an idea in order to start creating an opportunity where one did not exist before. Then you present something that removes their doubt and gets them saying, “This is a decent fit for me.” Finally, you get into dialogue with them to remove any objection and close.

There’s no shortcut to the process, no way to cheat the sales process—whether solicited or unsolicited. At the end of the day, sales is a science—a series of yeses:

Sales Success Ultimately Requires a Repeatable Sales Process

I have been a sales professional, entrepreneur, and have trained other salespeople since the 1980s. Selling vacuums door-to-door in college; leading the largest franchise for Dale Carnegie Training outside Taiwan and Hong Kong; building Tyson Group as the go-to sales trainers of professional sports and entertainment as well as insurance organizations; training over one thousand sales executives and sales managers annually.

In all these years of selling and working with organizations of all sizes, the key to successful sales can be distilled down to a six-step process applicable to any product, service, industry, and solution. This process works. It’s a process that will benefit any high performer—from entrepreneur to sales professional to manager trying to boost team performance—and anyone who wants to improve their sales effectiveness. Because at any point, it can be closely aligned with the buyer’s buying process.

Learn more about what this proven and repeatable sales process is by visiting www.tysongroup.com, OR by purchasing your copy of, Selling Is An Away Game: Close Business And Compete In A Complex World.

previous post I emphatically stated, prospecting is not dead!  Many marketing automation companies may try to convince you otherwise, or you may have convinced yourself with all the information seemingly available at your fingertips, that you have all the data you need to make a sale.

The fact is, nothing can replace actual prospecting.  It’s challenging but worth it.

Ultimately, connecting with someone involves gaining a prospect’s attention by communicating briefly about things that interest that individual. It’s in making that connection where research can help – trying to learn snippets that can help your conversation including education connections, places they’ve lived, companies they’ve worked for, etc.  Just remember: don’t lose sight of the importance of back and forth communication in the connecting process.

The art of prospecting takes patience, persistence, and the understanding of prospect’s perspective.  The following are critical tips for practicing successful prospecting:

In my previous post, I introduced the first three steps of my “Away-Game” selling process and how they directly mirror our experience at the doctor’s office.  Each of these steps addresses some aspect of being in the buyer’s mind – which is why it is so successful for sales professionals.  Previously we discussed the connect, evaluate, and diagnosis steps which are critical for moving toward a successful close.

As with the doctor, a diagnosis is just the beginning, and sometimes as a patient, we can be skeptical or unsure of the initial assessment.  That’s where we start back up with the rest of the sales process and pick up with the prescribe step:

4. Prescribe

Once a doctor is sure of his or her diagnosis, they will prescribe something to address a health issue. They may say something along the lines of: “I’m going to give you Tylenol with codeine for that nasty sore throat. Stay away from beer and that John Deere while you’re taking it.” In sales, as with the doctor, you prescribe a solution that addresses the diagnosis you’ve made. You’re tailoring it as much as we can to the specific needs of the buyer. At this point, the buyer will want to know: What is it? How does it work? Who says so besides you? And can you prove it? You’re going to give the buyer precisely the right amount of information, and no more, about the solution, to convince them that they’re justified in buying from you.

5. Dialogue

The deal isn’t done once the prescription is given. Not in the doctor’s office and not in sales. In the doctor’s office, you don’t just accept the prescription and start taking it. You’re going to want to understand the implications, the cause/effect, what will happen if you don’t accept the prescription, and what will happen if you do. Somewhere inside you, you may feel resistance to the prescription. You may want to put off taking it. The doctor’s going to need to have a conversation, however brief, that addresses these issues. In Away Game selling, there has to be a scenario where you’re asking the right questions to make sure the buyer understands what you’re suggesting. You’re talking with them to help them see how our product or service may help them now and in the future, asking questions like: “What do you like about this? What don’t you like about this?” In dialogue, you’re helping them to clarify.

6. Close

At this point, you’ve gone through connecting, diagnosis, prescription, and dialogue. Your objections have been addressed so that we won’t put off putting the prescription into practice. Now it’s time to close. The close is no more or less than an agreement to move forward with the prescription. In sales terms, it’s interchangeable with the commitment. This is what you’ve been working toward throughout the selling process and where you must overcome the last barrier in the buyer’s mind—indecision.

Like your experience at the doctor’s office, it’s a vetting process between both you as the patient and the doctor.  Remember that your patients – potential buyers – want their concerns understood, they want to feel validated.  At the same time, they want to feel confident in your product’s or service’s ability to address their concern. It’s your job as the “doctor” to make that happen.

Coaching your Sales Team to Set More Meetings, Close More Deals, and Surpass Their Performance KPIs

As a sales manager, you’re always looking for ways to improve your sales process and improve the performance of your sales team. One of the ideas that we constantly coach salespeople on in our sessions is that the most important part of the sales call is how you open. As mentioned in a past article, if you open a sales call correctly and follow your sales process, the close will follow as a natural part of the process.

If your sales team can open the call effectively, not only will they put the call on a solid foundation to move it through the sales pipeline, but it will also improve several important KPIs—including number of meetings set and their close ratio. So the question becomes: “Since the entire call hinges on the opening, how should they open the sales call to give them better odds of moving a deal through their pipeline?”

To answer this question, I’ll use an example from the time when we were selling generalized performance training programs to a manufacturing customer base.

An Example of How to Open a Sales Call That Gets Results

Back in the latter half of the 2000s, I attended a training session in which the future manager of my inside sales team, Jessica, was enrolled. During that session, I heard her deliver a remarkable story about opening a sales call, displaying exceptional sales acumen for someone just starting their sales career.

Jessica had been trying for weeks to get time with the HR manager at a local manufacturer to discuss our company’s latest offering, a new assessment service. Despite her best efforts, the manager kept giving her put-offs.

Responding Effectively to Prospect’s Put-Offs to Get Their Attention

Now, you’ve probably heard the same litany of put-offs I’ve heard from my team when I asked them for a status on their leads and how they are doing on their conversion KPIs. The responses your people get when opening a sales call probably sound something like the following:

On this particular day, Jessica caught the manager at “an inconvenient time” just like she had all the previous days.

However, this time Jessica had given some thought about the daily challenges her prospect faced. She said, “Let me ask you a question. I know that you spend a lot of time pouring over resumes, trying to find the right person to fill a position. And you have to go through several rounds of interviews before you find a few suitable candidates who may potentially accept the position. What would it be worth to you if you could reduce the time you spend searching through resumes, and increase your certainty of finding the right candidates for a position in your first round of searches?”

Apparently, Jessica hit a nerve. There was a long pause before her prospect said, “We need to talk. Do you have some time now?”

Using the Affinity Rule as a Component in Your Agile Sales Arsenal

In our training and coaching sessions, sales reps are always searching for that “magic bullet” that will give them an edge. They ask us questions like:

“How do I open a sales call?”

“What do I do to keep my contact on the phone when making a cold call?

“My contact says that they aren’t buying anything in this economy. What should I say?”

In every case, my advice to them is the same:

When you open your sales call, don’t talk about you, your company, or your product. Instead, talk about what’s of interest to your prospect.

This is such an important part of opening your sales call that in our sales training, we call it the Affinity Rule. And it’s an important, governing element of any sales methodology.

If you want to get your prospect’s attention, focus on the things that’s of interest to them.

Help Your Team Discover Their Buyer’s Interest before They Open the Sales Call

Prior to the year 2000, when we all used Fred Flintstone technology to sell, you could get away with opening a sales call by talking about that picture of a boat on your prospect’s wall or that fantastic restaurant down the street from their office.

Today, your sales team has it a lot tougher. Their buyers don’t have time to waste talking about minor interests. And they have a lot more information at their disposal, probably more than your salespeople. In today’s economic climate, thanks to the internet, your sales team is up against global competition. And their prospects’ tolerance for wasted time is less than zero.

So what’s of interest to your sales team’s buyers today? These are some of the challenges we review when training management teams:

Time, cost, and quality are always in tension. If your sales team can provide relief in any of these areas, it’s a win for them. In the above example with Jessica, time was the issue. Jessica’s offer allowed the manager to consider reclaiming much of her time spent sifting through potential candidates to find the right ones.

Their buyers are looking for some kind of career growth while maintaining job security. They are always looking for ways to maximize rewards while minimizing risk.

In small and medium size businesses, cash is king. Your sales team can win their buyer’s attention if they can increase their cash flow while minimizing their resource consumption.

Your sales team’s buyers want to talk with someone who can provide relief from their most challenging issues. Those issues always have their attention. So, your salespeople need to be able to put aside their own mental challenges, get out of their heads, and get into their buyer’s mindset because that’s where the sale really takes place.

Coach Your Sales Team to Open the Sales Call Using the Affinity Rule and Put the Sale on a Solid Foundation

Do you want your team to have that unfair advantage? Then have them do what Jessica’s did. Coach them to take time to discover the challenges their buyers face daily. Coach them to slow down, listen to their buyers and see the world through their buyers’ eyes. Then, coach them to open their sales call by talking about the things in which their buyers are interested.

Remember, selling is an away game. It happens in your buyer’s head. So coach your team to get out of their heads and get back into the game.

Good Selling!