The Wow — “Stories can conquer fear, you know.” (Ben Okri)
Today the greatest companies grow through remarkability and word of mouth. 7 out of 10 of our clients say that their leads come from referrals; customers are recommending them because they think they’re ‘worthy of note’.
The bar for success for most businesses has always been about creating a remarkable product and building an efficient distribution sales engine. The new bar is now building a distribution sales engine that generates more remarkability and more word of mouth. This pursuit of remarkability is now often the difference between the mediocre and those achieving hyper growth. As always innovation starts with companies selling to consumers (B2C) then moves over to B2B.
In this post I’m going to explore what it means to deliver remarkability and a memorable buying experience, but if you haven’t got time to read this now let’s cut to the chase. I would like to offer you the opportunity to experience BuyerDeck — our SaaS sales enablement and content management tool — as your buyers would. This is your chance to find out what it’s like to be a buyer and how you can differentiate your product by delivering a remarkable buyer experience.
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Back to remarkability…
What I Learnt About Decision-Making In A Restaurant Queue
On a business retreat with my team, we looked for restaurants on a busy street in Lisbon. We found all the recommended ones are busy with long queues. I assumed our hunger would lead us to settle for an average restaurant which is less busy. I was initially surprised when we ended up in a very long queue waiting to eat at one of the most bustling restaurants. Once I gave this more consideration It became apparent the restaurant had attracted us and changed our decision criteria by delivering a memorable buying experience.
The Buying Experience
Responsiveness… The front of house person (sales person), dressed impeccably with a charming smile, sees us from distant walks over and makes a genuine connection by asking if he could help. Within 3mins he has us in his restaurant queue. He has beaten the competition simply with his responsiveness.
Responsiveness, defined as the right information in the shortest time. At that moment our question was ‘what can we eat’ and ‘how long would it take for us to eat’. By handing us a menu to drool over while we wait he had reduced our anxiety and changed our decision criteria from ‘how long’ to ‘who is delivering the best experience right now’.
We now cared more about the experience we were on than the time to eat.
When a sales person in this buyer-centric culture receives a lead, they accept the lead knowing the accountability and ownership of delivering a memorable buying experience have been handed over from marketing to themselves.
First things first let’s not drop the ball on basics like responsiveness, then look for at least one opportunity to Wow. The basics gets rid of most of the competitors and the moment of Wow ensures the deal is not only won on their time, but the company also creates a memorable buying experience and potentially a remarkable story to generate even more word of mouth.
Like most sales leaders I believe how you sell is more important than what you sell. It is unfortunate that most salespeople drop the ball on the basics and miss the simplest opportunities to deliver memorable buying experiences.
Three ways you can deliver a memorable buying experience during your B2B complex sale.
- Responsiveness: Defined as providing answers to a buyers question in the shortest possible time. The majority of companies we speak to say 90% of leads have a 12 hour + response rate. What’s your lead response time? Most companies have a 24hr response rate, yet with the right technology and culture you can get your response rate to 5 mins and deliver a responsive buying experience.
- Sales Rep Vs Sales Team: Many companies assign a single sales person to handle an opportunity yet in most complex sales there is an assigned dedicated team that does the selling: Product, Technical, Legal, Support, senior sponsor etc. With the right technology this is not only possible it’s also scalable, and provides a better way to utilise your sales resources whist delivering a red carpet experience for every buyer.
- Transparency: Most buyer and seller relationship operate in a world of secrecy and opaqueness. However, there are now simple opportunities to create a remarkable buying experience in an environment of transparency and smooth collaboration between a buyer and seller. Just as it was clear in that restaurant queue in Lisbon what the buying experience and timeline would be — and transparency was a key driver in why we chose that restaurant — so too can your buyer experience manage and exceed expectations.
Would I recommend that restaurant to other visitors to Lisbon? Absolutely. Do your buyers recommend your products because of your memorable buyer experience? You tell me — comment below!
If you think that there’s scope to deliver a better, more remarkable buyer experience why not test drive our BuyerDeck sales portal to see what it could be like to be in your buyer’s shoes. Click here for more details.