Why do people buy?
“People buy for emotional reasons and justify with logic after.”
As salespeople, we know this. It’s one of the first things you learn in the profession: don’t sell features, sell benefits. Don’t sell the product, sell the dream.
This is really easy in the consumer world: it’s not difficult to sell a busy mother with three screaming children on the quiet drive she’ll enjoy when she buys your new minivan with TVs mounted into the backseat headrests. We know what emotional buttons to push there.
But what do you do when you’re selling to companies (B2B) and there are multiple layers of approvals, sales cycles are long and complex?
This is the context in which many of my LinkedIn coaching students are selling into. That’s when you have to go deeper — beyond what people want to get from a purchase and into why they want to buy in the first place.
B2B buyers don’t buy your product – they buy SUCCESS
Here’s why:
An unsuccessful company is one that goes out of business.
An unsuccessful individual is one who gets fired, or let go when the next round of layoffs comes, or passed over for promotion.
All of which have implications for fundamental needs like the ability to pay your mortgage or take care of your kids.
Being successful is the only thing that actually matters in B2B.
Saving money, saving time — any of the things we “sell” to customers in B2B actually translate into organisational success, and success for our customers in their business roles.
Success is achieved by doing things like saving time, making more money, being more productive, etc. Not the other way around.
Which is why, in B2B, you’re always selling success.
And you do that by understanding one thing: What does success look like in the specific role you’re selling to?
Find out how your buyer defines SUCCESS
Success differs from role to role, and there will be different concerns and obstacles preventing your buyers from reaching success.
The trick to effectively selling in B2B is understanding what success looks like for your ideal client, then showing them how your product can help achieve that. Maybe it’s through generating more sales or cutting production time or improving productivity.
Here are some quick tips to help you figure out what success looks like for your clients:
Use customer interviews and market research to help determine where your clients are struggling and how your solution is helping them achieve those goals.
Look up LinkedIn job descriptions matching your ideal client persona. Job descriptions for your ideal buyers lay out the required skills, knowledge, and role objectives that can help you determine what it means to be successful in that role. Not sure how to do this? I can show you!
Skim the headlines of industry publications read by your ideal client. Look for popular articles and repeated topics to get a sense of what’s currently on their mind and the issues they grapple with.
Ask them directly during sales calls. Ask your prospects questions about the current company vision and the role their department plays in it. Link your benefits to helping your customer achieve their goals as part of the overall company vision.
When you understand what success looks like for your customer, you can easily speak to those goals and show each prospect how your solution delivers the exact results they’re looking for. That might be by saving money, saving time, or some other benefit of your solution. But the real outcome they’re looking for is success. Show them how you can help them achieve it.
Start generating 5-50 more sales meetings a week.
My name is Jonny Rose and I’m the founder of Win At LinkedIn, a LinkedIn coaching service that trains B2B professionals to find leads, nurture prospects and close deals.
Let’s turn you into a Sales MACHINE, go here.
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