This is the second post of a seven-part blog series on "Bad Assumptions" that sales representatives make during the sales process.
A knowledgeable researcher has done their homework by visiting multiple vendor websites and leveraging their social network prior to reaching out/being willing to talk with a salesperson. Many have been happy to avoid early seller involvement. They have an inherent distrust of sellers and feel they may try to skew the requirements to gain a competitive advantage with no concern about how they are meeting buyer needs.
Problem: Despite the fact that vendors agree their sellers are getting involved in buying cycles later than ever before, most leave it up to each individual salesperson to determine how they are going to align with potential buyers that have already established their requirements. The most common mistakes they make are:
Sellers fail to understand the buyers that have done research have a vision of the features/capabilities they feel are needed. In the language of some sales training professionals, these buyers are already in Phase 2 of their buying cycles (evaluating offerings). In order to align with these buyers it is necessary to:
Executing this successfully will provide better buying experiences, have buyers conclude sellers are competent and provide a better chance of being Column A (the vendor of choice).
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