00:00 Understanding modern buyer behavior. Here’s an overview of what we’re going to go through in this micro course. We’re going to give you an introduction to key terms.
00:12 We’re going to talk about some of the attributes of the informed modern buyer, some things that you definitely need to be- that aren’t full of.
00:19 You can’t sell to someone that you don’t understand. Umm, then we’re going to look at a quick macro view of the 2023-24 sales trends and challenges, and we’re going to talk through some of the controllables and uncontrollables with the modern buyer.
00:34 Hopefully, uhh, shift some of your perspective around this. So key terms and definitions, let’s start out with value. Value oftentimes is a very subjective term and it depends on who you ask, right?
00:48 But if you wanted to have a universal definition, a value, this will be it. So value is something that a person is willing to invest time, resource, effort, emotion, or capital into, whether that’s personally or professionally, okay?
01:05 Number two. Here’s a term that you may not be familiar with. It’s called persona value mapping. It is the act of identifying and uncovering what an individual customer persona is willing to invest time, resource, effort, emotion, or capital into you and then aligning it with a desired outcome or outcomes
01:26 of that persona. And then finally, we’re going to look at quantitative value mapping. That is basically the act of taking the outputs that were identified in the persona v- value mapping stage and then aligning that with key operational and or economic impact metrics.
01:50 All right, so let’s take a zoom, a, a, a, a high-level view of what’s going on in the sales landscape or, or with, not even sales landscape, but more so around the buyer, right?
02:01 What’s happening before they get to you, right? And this is deep, this is data from, uhm, the HubSpot sales trend report.
02:10 I think a lot of you know that your prospects do some level of research before engaging with you. And I will say this report says they’re doing a considerable amount of research before engaging with you.
02:22 Uhm, it says 96%, almost 100% have done their own research. Right, so they’re already researching your product, your features, they know how it stacks up against competition for the most part.
02:34 Right, so they have a foundational understanding of what your product or service does. And just like you’re using AI, you’re using AI.
02:42 AI for prospecting and outreach and things of that nature. Your customer can also use AI. Right, it’s not, you’re not the only one that can use this, umm, this technology.
02:52 Right that they’re using it to do their own research. And so they’re already coming to the table knowing about your product and your features and things like that.
03:03 What can you do to differentiate yourself? What can you do to bring unique value, umm, to, to the table and to that discussion?
03:15 This is what HubSpot says, you have to evolve from a sales rep to becoming a consultant, right? It says relationship building and connection are more important than ever.
03:29 Sales reps can’t just close deals by walking their prospects through the many features and benefits of their product. That does not work anymore, okay?
03:38 But if you want to talk about being a consultant, let me help you understand what a consultant truly is, right?
03:43 A consultant is a domain expert, okay? If you are not a domain expert of the macro and micro conditions of your customer’s, umm, ecosystem and environment, you need to become one.
03:56 And you need to become one really quick, right? You have to be informed with relevant knowledge about what they’re going through.
04:04 Consultants, because they’re both, you know, consultant is both a strategic and tactical advisor. So in order to be that, you have to have knowledge, right?
04:12 Umm, consultants are also able to show customers things that they can’t see on their own, right? And sometimes in order to do that, you have to have information the customer doesn’t have or you may need to ask them questions that they’ve never been asked before, but either way you’ve got to get them
04:28 to see their business through a different lens, through a more objective and data-focused lens. That’s what a consultant does. A consultant is able to do, okay?
04:37 Umm, consultants influence progressive change. They’re not just order takers. They’re not just reactive. Umm, they’re not just demo experts. They drive progressive change.
04:47 A big part of sales is change, right? You’re saying. Hey, Mr. And Mrs. Customer, I want you to stop doing what you’re doing and look at this new alternative, which is basically my product, my service or solution or whatever.
05:00 It’s still change. You’re creating a level of disruption now. Hopefully that disruption is positive, but it’s, it’s still a form of change.
05:08 And so a true consultant can drive that change and not just be a player in that change, right? You lead it.
05:15 And then finally, a consultant demonstrates unique and tangible or let’s say measurable value, right? We’ll get into, more of that later on, uhm, in the, in the module, okay?
05:28 So these were the top five challenges that sales teams are facing in 2023 or they were facing in 2023, right?
05:35 Number one is inflation. Number two is stand out from competition. Lack of high quality leads, reaching decision makers, and longer deal cycles.
05:43 I’m sure all of these resonate with you, uhm, today. Because it’s a reality. But guess what? Four out of five of these can be ended.
05:55 Influenced by some form of value mapping. Meaning these are controllable elements. You may not think they are, but they actually are.
06:03 Right? There’s just things that we need to execute better and more efficiently in our sales and our outreach process. Okay?
06:11 And I’ll give you this note. Sales and outreach are not the same. Right? An outreach is the precursor to sales, but sales happens when the actual customer or prospect interaction starts to occur with you.
06:26 That’s when the real selling happens. Sales is not top of funnel stuff. Sales is not email sequences and automated outreach and marketing like.
06:35 That’s not sales. It’s part of it, but it’s not the meat in the core of sales. But anyway, 4 out of 5 of these, and I’ll let you kind of guess what you think.
06:44 But again, it can be influenced by some form of value mapping. And this is another term that I want to introduce to you.
06:49 What is value mapping? Value mapping is the correlation of a potential benefit to a tangible outcome. Again, the correlation of a potential benefit to a tangible outcome.
07:03 So your product has potential benefits with your customers looking for a tangible outcome. So you’re trying to determine what, what benefit of your product or solution or service connects correlates with the outcome that your customer prospects looking for because that’s why they buy.
07:21 They buy because your solution helps them achieve an outcome. Never forget that. Okay. So let’s talk about the, Uncontrollables versus Uncontrollables.
07:34 Number 1. Inflation. This is the only uncontrollable variable in the Unless mix. Okay? Out of the 5. Standing out from competition?ors out Competition? yes you can control that!
07:47 Through something, through what we talked about before. Quantitative value mapping. I’ll get into what that looks like and how you perform that later on.
07:55 But I want to just, again, this is just foundational. Number 2, or number 3. Lack of high quality leads that is controllable through precision.
08:03 Persona value mapping, if you do it effectively, if you do it properly, and I’ll show you how to do that.
08:10 Number 4, reaching decision makers. Same thing, it’s controllable through persona value mapping. Focused on strategic and economic value metrics. Alright, so when you think about your decision makers, your executives, umm, the senior leaders at the top that are kind of calling the shots, even though
08:28 it’s still kind of, it’s really done by committee, but anyway, if you’re talking about creating a message that resonates with them, You must be able to map your potential value to that personas outcomes, their strategic and economic value metrics, their KPIs, the things they care about, and I’ll show
08:46 you that in other modules as well. And then finally, longer deal. All of us are dealing with that, right? But it’s still controllable through something called customer workflow, value mapping.
09:03 You will be surprised at how much leverage you can gain from understanding Thank you. Your customers workflow and then learning how to show them how improvements within that workflow can provide tremendous or reveal tremendous opportunity cost for them and it will 10x pay for your solution.
09:23 It’ll be 10x justified. We, we do this all the time. Workflow mapping, understanding your customers workflow or their process, business process or whatever is absolutely critical.
09:36 And now in the coming years, it will be. Essential. Every business has workflows, every business or, or pro, call it business processes and they are all quantifiable, meaning they’re all measurable.
09:49 You just have to figure out how to identify those, right? And we’ll teach you how.