I’ve been a huge fan of Hank Barne’s research on buying and buyer regret. Over years, he showed increasing frustration in buying teams, resulting in regret. The primary observations had been frustration over the buying process, less with solution selection.
In Hank’s latest research he reports that buyers are getting better in navigating their buying process. Part of this is they are engaging more internal groups in their buying process. Hank’s hypothesis is buyers are recognizing they need help in their process, so they are engaging others in the organization to help them. They, also, are leveraging these other people much earlier to help them do the work and share the risk. He is also identifying the AI effect, saying buyers are leveraging LLMs to support product selection.
As buyers get better, it raises/changes their expectations on suppliers–sellers. The challenge becomes, “Are sellers getting better?” Can sellers meet and exceed buyer expectations of them, both in their digital and human based engagement strategies?
As the research indicates, while they are getting better, they still struggle and look for help, but the help they are looking for is less in solution selection.
Some key questions for sellers, as we look at buyers raising the bar of expectations:
- Do we understand where they struggle in their buying process?
- Do we understand why they are having these difficulties?
- Do we have ideas about how we can help them reduce that struggle?
- As we look at a broadening buying group, do we understand each of the groups, how they might/should be involved, where they struggle and how we can help them?
- Can we bring them relevant experience and support they view as helpful to what they are trying to achieve.
- ….and more….
As we look at these issues and how we meet their increased expectations, we notice virtually none of this is about a product. Developing our demo capabilities isn’t important to them. Developing our objection handling skills, closing skills, is irrelevant to where they struggle in their buying process.
Buyers are raising the bar, but they still struggle. The majority of buying decisions still end in no decision made. If we want to create value, earning more business, then we have to be raising the bar on our abilities to help customers.
Buyers are getting better. Are sellers getting better?
Afterword: To help better understand our customers and their problems, we’ve developed two tool: The Customer-Focused Questionert and the Buyer-Focused Questionert. Feel free to email me for copies.
Afterword: Here is the AI generated discussion of this post. Enjoy!
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