In the book The Challenger Sale, Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson inform us that buyers no longer want to talk to Sellers. Six years on from this bomb shell, at CEBs annual Sales & Marketing summit in Vegas Adamson drops another one, we learn that the proportion of time buyers spend meeting with potential suppliers is down to just 17% of the total time spent on key buying activities. On average buyers engage with three vendors so actually the amount of time buyers spend meeting with potential buyers can be as low as 5.7% of time spent on buying. Vendor sellers are literally getting squeezed out of buying cycles.
From Caveat Emptor to Caveat Venditor
This begs the question what are buyers doing for the other 83% of the time. 27% of the time they are researching independently online and 18% of the time offline. 22% of the time they are meeting with the buying group and as we know from previous CEB research buying groups are getting bigger, from an average size of 5.8, in the latest research from CEB this number has grown to 6.8 a 17% increase. Seems like 17 is the number to remember in this world where the tables have well and truly turned. According to Dan Pink in his book To Sell is Human, it’s no longer caveat emptor, buyer beware, but rather, Caveat venditor, seller beware, because buyers are independently of the time they spend with sellers researching, educating themselves, comparing, evaluating outside of the time they spend with the seller.
Ok nothing new here right, but wait, this year CEB dropped a second bombshell.
Digital Everywhere
Buyers are using Digital sources throughout the buying cycle. The theory has always been that buyers do their educating early and then at some point in their buying cycle they switch to engaging much more with the vendor seller and spend less time online. That theory got blown away by Brent Adamson as he shared research that informs that buyers use digital sources throughout their buying journeys and they don’t let up. There is no chasm to cross or tipping point. At no point do buyers transition from online to in-meeting. Even when they do meet with vendor sellers once the meeting is over buyers get right back online and continue to explore and contrast using digital sources.
Sources Visited Most Frequently Online
When CEB asked buyers, which sources they visit most frequently online, they got a reality check. The third bombshell at this year’s annual Sales & Marketing summit was that the source buyers visit most frequently on-line is the vendors website. Buyers are visiting vendor web sites and they do expect that there is some recognition of who they are and there are insights and information that helps them accelerate their buying journey. The vendor website is not a branding tool but a buying tool!
Industry experts; communities, bloggers were the next most important.
Shmee150 – 1million Subscribers
The Shmee vblog car channel on You Tube reached 1million subscribers four months ago. Ever wondered why car manufacturers fly these independent car bloggers off to the most exotic locations and wine and dine them and give them the chance to drive their newest incarnations before anyone else. Well it’s because bloggers are the second most frequently visited source by buyers online. The fourth bombshell dropped by CEB in Vegas was that this trend applies equally to B2B as it does to B2C.
According to LinkedIn 77% of buyers want custom data & Insights to be incorporated into their interactions. So, the message is clear for sellers you better make sure that the 5.7% of time that the buyer invests in meeting with you is filled with valuable data points and insights and that the buyer has multiple opportunities to go deeper to educate themselves and learn about the potential value of these insights to their business when they land on your website and through interactions in communities and with Industry experts like Shmee bloggers in your Industry.
Alan consults companies on their Sales and Marketing transformation business initiatives and is a specialist in world class sales & marketing practices to the new cloud buyer. Alan is the founder of Pipe9 Consulting and creator of the Role Excellence Cloud a Cloud developed to support Role Owners, Community Leads, HR leaders and Managers manage successful sales & marketing business transformations.
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