If it’s not happening at your company, it’s time for Sales and Marketing to work together. The stakes are too high for them not to.
Everyone believes that the buyer is controlling the buying process. Prospects are doing their own research on the products or services they want. Most are about 60% of the way through this search stage before they contact a vendor.
How does your company take back control of this process?
Sales and Marketing have to work together.
Marketing can attract a prospective buyer to your product or service. It can do this by making information available on the product or service they’re looking for right when they start to look. This information can be in articles online or an industry publication a buyer is reading. It can also be in a talk, seminar or workshop at a conference. Another way may be in a video or white paper on your website.
Key here Is to capture as much information as you can on the prospective buyer and their company as soon as they start to look at your product or service. Marketing then starts to send or email them additional information on your company and product or service.
A prospective buyer is going to go through several different steps:
Start to look at what products or services are available to meet their need.
Find out as much as possible about each one they found including their strengths and weaknesses.
Settle on the top 2 or 3 and investigate these further.
Look at the companies that offer them and see which would might be the best for them to work with.
Contact each and learn more about them.
Invite the top ones in for presentations.
Marketing can channel information available to the prospective buyer at each of the first 3 steps in this process. They can demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of your product or service. They can also help them get to know your company at a much deeper level.
At the time a prospective buyer is settling on the top 2 or 3 vendors they are really interested in, you want your company to be one. At that time Marketing turns them over to Sales for follow-up by a sales rep.
Marketing can work closely with the sales rep to prepare their sales presentation.
Sales reps can also identify prospective buyers they want to work with prior to step 1. Rather than making contact with these they should turn them over to marketing and have marketing go through the above process with them.
By following this process you’re maximizing your sales reps’ time and enabling them to do what they do best. You’re also generating more sales for your company.
