Today's post is by Ardath Albee. She'll be speaking on Flip Your Focus: How to Catch & Keep Your Prospect's Attention at the upcoming Sales SheBang Conference on September 23-24.
Who's Qualifying Who?
I've been in two meetings today where companies were discussing the parameters to set for defining qualified leads. When I hung up, I checked my email and saw an email from Forrester talking about the shift of control in the sales process from sellers to buyers.
As sellers, we're often convinced that if we just get the right formula for evaluating leads, then we can gather them up and put our sales teams in touch with sales-ready buyers.
Not any more. There isn't likely to be any sales conversation until buyers decide that your company is a match to their business needs.
You see, it's not about products and services. Buyers are buying the solution to an urgent problem. They are not buying the Wiz Bang 5000.
This is not to say that the Wiz Bang 5000 isn't a terrific product with umpteen features that can slice bread while performing trapeze acts, but that's not the point. Buyers could care less if they buy the Wiz Bang 5000 or the Rocket Blaster Supreme, as long as it gets them the end result they're looking for.
If you want to pass muster during your buyers' qualification process, your marketing communications and website content need to help them explore, analyze and understand the options available for solving the problems they have. And, it's not just about solving them, it's about how you get them from pain to peace.
The higher the comfort level and trust your buyers associate with you, the more qualified you'll become.
The rules of the game are reversing. It's not about sellers going after buyers as much as it is buyers choosing sellers who have proved worthy of the invitation for conversation. You do that by ensuring your content and communications are focused on buyers' needs.
The bigger concern these days is in being found at that opportune moment. Of being able to build relationships as thought leaders so you'll be top of mind when a buyer decides to make a decision and move forward with a priority project.
Demographics are how sellers determine who might be an ideal customer. But, really, it's the personas and profiles you create that can put you within reach of buyers. A simple example is optimizing your content for the Wiz Bang 5000 to the exclusion of optimizing it for best practices for bread slicing. Which term is your buyer likely to use in a search for educational information about how to solve their problem?
So, when you think about the steps you're taking to actually have a shot at the purchase conversation coming down the pike, who's qualifying who?
B2B marketing strategist and CEO of Marketing Interactions, Ardath Albee helps companies significantly increase their marketing effectiveness by generating more and better leads for their sales organization. She helps them capture the attention of web site visitors, and keep in touch with high value content till they are "sales ready."
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