Optimum Sales – The 7 Vectors for Defining the B2B Buyer Persona
We are in a new scenario where commercial relationship models have changed or evolved unexpectedly, not disruptively, but more rapidly.
This situation should prompt us to review or redefine our Buyer Persona, because based on the new customer profile, we need to establish a new way of selling that is more adapted to their reality and our current reality.
In this article, I present our revised vision of the Buyer Persona profile, primarily in B2B environments. Surely many aspects have been accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This update surely has a temporary validity, and that within 3-6 months we will need to update it.
This customer taxonomy is defined under 7 vectors.
- Vector Digital
It is a reality of our time the hyperconnection of people to digital environments. Each customer has different platforms through which they are in contact with both their professional realities and their personal realities. The B2B customer behaves like the customer in B2C markets; when they feel the need to purchase, they conduct an online search, request information, and contact the potential product supplier company. Winning companies are proactively present in digital environments to be an option during customers’ product search moments.
Salespeople must be able to sell in digital environments, and their job description should evolve from solely in-person sales to both in-person and digital sales. Depending on the market in which they work, they must master the different digital channels for customer relations; social media are their allies. LinkedIn, WhatsApp, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, are new tools through which they must be able to deliver value to customers.
In-person visits no longer exist. The client agrees to interact with salespeople via videoconference, and the salesperson must be skilled in their execution. Zoom, Teams. BlueJeans, the classic Skype and HangOut are additional tools that must be present in the daily life of the salesperson.
- Vector information
The customer is hyper-informed and well-informed before contacting us. In fact, they have already made the purchase decision (what to buy and from whom to buy based on the digital information obtained) between 30% and 60%. The rest is the process that the seller must develop in situations of demand.
In acquisition processes, the first sale is to work on customer attention; their information and work saturation do not allow them to absorb all the knowledge impacts they receive. The challenge is generating content that adds value to the customer at every stage of their sales process. The content generated and managed by marketing, and also driven by marketing, becomes one of the most important commercial assets of the organization.
- Vector Purchase Process
Customer purchasing processes have become longer and more complex. Given the digital empowerment of professionals from different departments of the clients, there are increasingly more people requesting information about products or solutions without being a main actor in the actual purchasing process. To this situation, decision-making processes are added, which are increasingly associative, meaning more people give their opinions, influence, and the more people involved, the slower and more complex the purchasing process becomes. Sellers must be resilient and generate combined processes of active selling, influence management, and commercial relationships both in terms of in-person and digital sales.
- Hyper-personalization Vector
“My company, my market, my sector, my department… are different.” The client wants to receive hyper-personalized attention, tailored solutions, customized information, unique offers, and to establish unique relationships. The customer has little time to attend to salespeople, whether new or already supplying them; they only engage with those salespeople who they believe can add value to the development of their business. Sympathetic salespeople with a high level of rhetoric are no longer accepted; customers prefer salespeople who provide a real solution to their problems, in a concise but effective manner. The customer only listens to those professionals they trust, so salespeople must work on their professional brand, increasing their positioning as specialists in the sector or product.
- Vector Customer Journey
As a result of Hyper-personalization, we will need to interact with each of our customers differently. We must seek maximum satisfaction at each point of customer interaction. The salesperson must communicate their expectations to the different departments of their company and reach a satisfactory agreement with all departments.
- Hedonism Vector.
The customer doesn’t want to hear a NO as an answer, and they want everything urgently. He transfers his problems to the salesperson, and not always in the appropriate manner, neither in form, nor in substance, nor in timing. The salesperson must assess the value of the customer to the company and provide a response in a timely and appropriate manner that meets their expectations.
The customer neither responds nor thanks, therefore, sustained intelligent follow-up over time, and multi-channel in a resilient manner with appropriate persistence, is a tool to obtain a response from the customer.
- Vector Fidelity
Customers have always been unfaithful, but now they are volatile. They continuously seek and receive proposals. They want to try new options; our value proposition must be so powerful at all levels that testing with the competitor should enhance the business relationship with us.
Surely there are nuances between B2B clients from different sectors; it’s not the same a purchasing manager who buys plastic tubes to manufacture components for the automotive industry as a marketing director of a food product manufacturer who buys creative campaigns for their advertising campaigns. However, if we are able to detail our current Buyer Persona by specifying these 7 vectors, you will surely be more effective.
| David Galve | General Director www.linkedin.com/in/davidgalve |  |
