We have seen a tremendous rise in the interest and use of buyer personas since 2002. The year I first introduced the methodology for creating buyer personas specifically for marketing and sales. It will serve no purpose to rehash how much buyers have changed since then. The new reality is buyers will keep changing – at an accelerated pace. Just when we thought, we have caught up, out comes new technology and processes destined to change buyers forever. This means the buyer personas you have already developed can be potentially obsolete. MORE >>

CAN WE KNOW WHEN A BUYER WILL BUY? Until or unless everyone who will touch the solution has added their 2 cents to the criteria for solution selection, and an entire change management plan has been developed, a buyer cannot buy. The Buying Facilitation® model enters early in the decision path and actually enables buyers to navigate through their decision path quickly, leading to the ability to forecast more accurately – not perfectly, given the nature of the change and people issues buyers must align prior to being able to make a purchase. It’s a guess. MORE >>

Sales models to not have the capability to facilitate the buyer’s behind-the-scenes issues and activities to ensure they get the necessary buy-in to bring in an outside solution. But they should, because in the gap between the selling and the buying is where we lose our buyers, and they lose us. WHEN DOES A BUYER  NEED TO BUY. But the last thing a buyer needs is a solution. In fact, buyers don’t want to buy anything – they merely need to resolve a business problem. BUYERS LIVE IN SYSTEMS. Buying is a change management activity. Bingo. MORE >>

If 57% is your buyer’s number. 57% of the buying process is completed before buyer-rep interaction. Source – SEC) This statistic is based on the “average” buyer. Your buyer isn’t average. Buyers are increasingly listing ease of doing business as evaluation criteria. Buyers are more educated before interacting with a rep. Since buyers are spending less time interacting face-to-face, each interaction is more important. Focus Resources – when does the buyer want to interact with each resource? Are your reps acting like AT&T? MORE >>

When I hear sellers say that buyers have ‘pain’ I ask how long it would take them to get to the hospital with a broken arm. But buyers don’t buy ‘immediately’ and have had their problem for a period of time. If your buyer had pain, they would have fixed the problem already. Like all of us, buyers live in systems of people and policies, activies and relationships. Sales acts as if the buyer’s problem were an isolated event.  HOW TO SELL IF THE BUYER DOESN’T WANT A SOLUTION? “Immediately.”  MORE >>