The Buyer’s Journey

From the Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept

In trying to prepare ourselves for the wasteland that might face us when we reopen our doors, we should be looking at how to fine-tune our offering to our clients in a world where sales will be everything. A single sale could mean the difference between keeping your workers on or going bust. 

Sales have never been more important.

Your product is perfect, but how do you sell it in a time of darkness?

Marketing students will know of The Buyer’s Journey, but very few others will, yet it is so powerful - and so if we take just a few moments to think about the following, it will pay dividends.

So what is the ‘Buyer’s Journey’?

Simply put, it draws your customer and you closer together.

It will enable, if done right, a perfect win-win situation whereby the customer just asks where they sign at the end of the conversation.

The ‘Buyer’s Journey’ brings your clients incredible value by:

1. Finding out what their problem is.

2. Finding out the negative feeling this problem brings about in them

3. Solving both the problem and the feeling via the feeling.

Seriously - what more does your Customer want?

But you have to be patient. Please Be Patient. This is a process.

You have to follow the clear path and this path looks like this:

• Problem

• Pain

• Transformation

• Education

• Authority

• Social Proof

• Call to Action.

So let us start at the beginning.

Problem.

What is their Problem? 

You have to ask - what is the big challenge facing your Customer? No surprises that these days it is Coronavirus, so you can actually jump a step without having to ask that obvious question (we don’t want to have your customer think you have been asleep for the past 4 months!) and drill immediately down to the next level:

“Given Coronavirus” (you say), “and its impact on (add your views on the impact on their industry as a whole), how has this impacted your operations in/with etc?”

Then drill down again: “…how has it shown itself in your role/responsibility/area etc?”.

So typically (if we take the airline industry as an example) this could be:

“Given the terrifying effect of Coronavirus on the Travel Industry, how has this impacted your operations in the maintenance of Aircraft?”… 

Answer: “We are as busy as ever as we still need to maintain aircraft even if they are not flying or if we are going to park them on a far field, we have to ensure complete sealing and oiling to ensure no rust/dust gets into the engines.”

“How has this shown itself in your role as Head of Buying for Bulkhead oils?” 

Answer: “Terrible, our current stock of oils are intended for flying and being checked after ‘x’ flying miles, not parking - I have no idea even how long they will last or if even they will deteriorate in the sunshine.”

Once you have gone as deep as possible and usually how it has impacted their own area that will be enough, you move to:

Pain.

How does this make you feel? This is important.

They will say “Frustrated”; “Frightened”; “Nervous” etc. 

“Nervous”

File that away, we shall need that emotion later (much like a magician, this will be pulled out of the hat later….).

Transformation.

This goes something like this:

“Let’s say I am able to solve your problem for you, what in your mind would a win look like? How would your business, life, look like if what I brought to the party provided that win?”

“Not having to check the aircraft day in day out and worry about how much damage is being done to these aircraft while they just sit out in the sun doing nothing.”

Education.

“So what’s stopping you from going ahead and achieving that right now? What’s missing?”

“A lack of knowledge about the products we have in stock, no tests have ever been done on them for this change in need.”

This is now (and only now) when you start to solve their problem, you tell them how your product/delivery/consistency/training program solved this exact problem with another group/company, by telling your customer 

1. Why your product or service solved it

2. By how much it solved it

3. and How you solved it.

Interestingly at this stage the ‘How’ is less important than the ‘Why’ and ‘How Much?’.

(Helpful hint: This is the basis of your ‘Elevator Pitch’ - the ‘Why’ and ‘How Much?’)

We then move to:

Authority.

Come on, we are on the home stretch, you now have to tell them. Authority means you have to tell them - Why You? or Why Your Product or Service?

This will be “…doing this for ’10' years and solved this ’27’ times through ’13’ companies” or “Won the ABC Award for Excellence” or “Special technology that only we have…” or… “we have the only NASA tested lubrication oil for parking a spaceship in outer space for 28 years with zero maintenance needs, now confirmed by Airbus for parked Aircraft.” (er… that’ll work!)

Then - 

Social Proof.

(Get ready with that Magician’s Hat)

If we book a table at a hotel or restaurant, we always check the comments section, so here we tell the customer:

“This is why ‘XYZ’ customer’s buying agent felt so (take the positive of the negative feeling your customer had right at the beginning and pull it out of the hat HERE!) “Relaxed”; “Brave”; “Calm”.

Then finally, it is amazing how many people do something if you tell them to do it.

Call To Action.

“If you would like my product/service to do this for you, I am happy to start right away.”

Sale done, now get out. Why? Because it is often the case that further conversations can talk you out of the deal. It has happened so many times. Great sales people know this.

Be polite, get the buyer to sign (never miss that step out, if they say ‘send over the contract’ do so; if they say “my word is my bond, we don’t need contracts”, smile and say “Contracts work both ways, they clearly show my obligations and how they match with your expectations, that is very important for both of us”.

Then make your excuses and leave. Please follow up immediately you get back to the office, contract in hand.

But you say - if I have the only NASA approved hairbrush or whatever it is that you offer, why not just send him an email and wait for him to buy 20 of them? Because often the buyer will have no idea of his own problem and certainly no idea of the emotion this brings up. This is often only shown by your questions as you draw out the answers. You must have these to draw him in. Plus, if you just send him an email (rather than call or (hopefully soon) turn up at his office), he will just check prices with your competitors. If you are more expensive, he may simply order theirs, if you are cheaper, he will wonder why.

Happy hunting and stay safe!