In 2003 I was working in a Silicon Valley tech startup. Google was just 5 years old, the iPhone was a glint in Steve Jobs’ eye, and Blackberry was the king of the smart-phone market.
I’ll never forget one meeting at the disc drive manufacturer Maxtor; the buyers in the meeting knew nearly as much as we did about our product and they knew more about our competitors product (Google search) than we did.
Another problem was that we didn’t really have any insight as to where they were in their buying process. They went radio silent and disappeared after our meeting.
When I read Why Killer Products don’t Sell by Ian Gotts and Dominic Rowsell, which is the original work on which IMPACT is based, it was like a light had been turned on in a dark room.
At last I understood the B2B buying process - not through the lens of the sales funnel, nor through the simplistic 19th century advertising concept AIDA, but based on what’s actually going on in the buying organization. The title of my blog is inspired by Tiffany Bova of Gartner, The 90’s called, they want their channel programs back.
The B2B Buyers Journey – Sales Guide is a new eBook designed to create an understanding of the B2B buying process, not through the lens of the sales funnel, but based on what’s actually going on in the buying organization.
This eBook will help entrepreneurs, sales managers and salespeople to understand how to use content facilitate the buying process.
Concepts covered:
- The I-M-P-A-C-T buying process
- The impact of risk on vendor engagement and buying behavior
- Questions salespeople must ask and answer to facilitate buying process transitions
- Mapping the sales process onto buying process
- The role of content in the buyer-seller dialogue
