This document discusses how B2B buying has shifted to an inbound model where buyers are in control of the process. It outlines the changing buying cycle and how marketing and sales need to work together based on buyer personas. The key aspects are to understand the buyer's journey, answer their questions at each stage through helpful content, capture leads from digital properties, cultivate trust to develop sales-qualified leads, and continue engagement after the sale through customer evangelism. The overall approach is to know the buyer intimately in order to guide them through their decision-making process in a non-intrusive way.

1. Finding Leads in the
Digital Age
How to Turn the Radical Shift
in B2B Buying into a
Competitive Advantage

2. What We’ll Cover
How to:
q Navigate the changing buying cycle.
q Capture quality leads from your
website.
q Turn leads into sales opportunities.
q Get marketing and sales on the
same page.

3. The World Has Changed.
WHAT’S GOING ON?

4. Traditional Selling
q Scarcity of
information.
q Sales Rep as
“expert” advisor.
q Time pressure to
decide.

5. Inbound Selling
q Abundance of
information.
q Sales rep as
‘purchase
facilitator’.
q No time pressure.

6. What it Feels Like
Businesses used to operating as a trusted advisor
suddenly feel like vendors hawking goods at the market
and battling with customers over price.

7. The Buyer Is In Control.
GOOD BYE SALES FUNNEL

8. Disintermediation
Getting Rid of the Monkey in the Middle

9. Music Industry
Independent artists bring a greater variety of good music
to the masses at lower cost, while making more money.
Music labels, agents and managers lose control.

10. Self-Publishing
Agents, publishers and bookstores cede control of the print
market to authors while self-publishing takes off.

11. Real Estate
For Sale By Owner services start to grow rapidly in 2012.
Anticipate downward pressure on realtor commissions and
realignment of service offerings and fee structures.

12. Remember this guy?
Today, the buyer is in control.

13. Buyer Behavior
Today’s buyer navigates the majority of the sales process
independently, without ever engaging directly with your
company.

14. Buyers’ Changing Expectations
“I already know what I need, how much it should cost and
what quantity I will buy. I’m looking to you to validate my
decision and help me make it happen.”

15. The New Professional Sales Person.
TOUR GUIDE

16. It’s a Jungle Out There
The buyer isn’t confident that he has absorbed all of the
information, or even the right information. But he has
constructed a story to help him organize it. Your job is to align
your company with that story.

17. Information Overload
By the time the buyer gets to sales, he has been
presented with multiple different explanations. Often, the
explanations are in conflict with one another.

18. PAC4E Yourself
Selling is a marathon, not a sprint.

19. Aligning Sales & Marketing.
BUYER PERSONAS

20. The Buyers’ Journey
Status
Quo
Where
conversaHon
needs
to
begin!
Buyer
Wakes
Up
Google
It
Self
Diagnosis
• First
Decision
-­‐
What
Shopping!
Where
sales
typically
enters
the
conversaHon.
• Second
Decision
–
How
much?
Shortlist
vendors.
Engage
prospecHve
vendors.
SelecHon
&
purchase.
• The
final
decision
–
who
gets
the
sale.
Sharing
the
Experience

21. Understanding Buyers
Develop a buyer persona to inform every communication
you have around your prospective customers. Marketing &
sales must agree on who the buyer is, what he needs, and
more importantly what he fears and what motivates him.

22. Who is Your Buyer
Can you describe your ideal buyer?
² Industry,
role, title, age range, gender,
marital status, education?
² What are common interests of people
who fit this profile, outside of work?
² What organizations does your buyer
belong to?
² What publications – online & off – are
read?

23. Who is Your Buyer
What does your buyer need?
² What
trigger event(s) most often start
the ‘wake up’ process?
² What is the end goal, the unrealized
problem the buyer needs to solve?
² How does the buyer frame that
problem?
² What is the story he is telling himself
about the problem?

24. Who is Your Buyer
Why does your buyer need you?
² How
do you solve the problem, as the
buyer sees it?
² What reservations is he likely to have about
buying your product?
² How does your solution fit into the story
the buyer has constructed?
² What do you need to influence about the
buyer’s story?
² What action do you need buyers to take, to
begin a sales engagement?

25. Who is Your Buyer
What questions does your buyer need
to answer:
² To
understand his problem?
² To choose a course of action?
² To narrow down the vendors to
consider?
² To get the best value from your product
after purchase?
² To remain confident that he has made
the best choice possible?

26. Next, answer each of these questions:
q Using the same language as the buyer
q In a manner consistent with the lens through
which the buyer sees the world
q At the exact moment the buyer needs the
answer
q Without appearing too pushy or salesy
q While presenting multiple non-threatening
options to engage with a human being.

27. Inbound Sales & Marketing.
THE PAC4E SYSTEM

28. B2B Selling Goes Retail
~85%
of
all
B2B
purchases
start
with
a
web
search.
85
–
99%
of
website
visitors
are
“just
looking”
When
the
seller
is
in
control,
nothing
above
this
point
mabers.
Of
the
1-­‐2%
who
are
‘real’
another
80%
will
not
be
markeHng
qualified
leads
(MQL)
Of
the
remaining
20%,
less
than
half
will
likely
become
sales
qualified
leads.
What
is
your
closing
raHo?

29. Selling is a marathon, not a sprint.
You don’t want to be this guy!

31. Platform & Positioning
Create your own podium and establish a platform from
which you can get the word out.

32. Attract Qualified Visitors
Buyer’s Journey – the prospect is moving from the status quo
and waking up to the problem. Focus your content here around
the trigger events that are likely to start this process.

33. Connect and Capture MQLs
Buyer’s Journey – the prospect is aware that something needs to
change and is in the “learning” stage, gathering and absorbing as
much information as possible. Your goal at this stage is influence
the story they will tell themselves about how the problem should
be solved.

34. Cultivate Trust and Develop SQLs
Buyer’s Journey – the prospect has developed the story
about how they will frame the problem, and is
investigating solutions. Convince them to put you in the
mix.

35. Close the Deal – The Sales Conversation
As a sales person, you will either take the order or blow
the deal. The choice is yours. Are your words consistent
with the story that has been constructed?

36. Captivate Customers
In the age of social media, what happens after the deal is
done matters. It matters a lot. What do your customers
say the morning after?

37. Evangelize
After-sale care is more important than ever. It is the only
real opportunity to create a point of differentiation that will
hold up under scrutiny. Identify those customers who take
pride in their influence, keep them happy and leverage
their popularity.

38. In a Nutshell
q Know your buyer.
q Develop answers to his questions at each stage
of the buying process.
q Create content to answer specific questions &
make it freely available.
q Automate information delivery.
q Collect contact details in exchange for
information.
q Use lead scoring to shape sales response and
personalize automated communications.
q Maintain contact post-sale.

39. Thank You
Paula Skaper
KinetixMedia.com
pskaper@kinetixmedia.com