{"id":12132,"date":"2020-02-18T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandler.dsstaging2.com\/case-study\/are-you-a-trail-leader\/"},"modified":"2022-12-19T17:00:31","modified_gmt":"2022-12-19T17:00:31","slug":"are-you-a-trail-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandler.com\/blog\/are-you-a-trail-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You a Trail Leader?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Series Title – INSIDE THE NUMBERS \u2013 Data Insights from the Sandler Research Center<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you don’t know where you are going, any road can take\nyou there.\u201d \u2015 Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some businesses and leaders act like trail leaders. They\nresearch their maps and information about an area they plan to explore. They plan\ntheir travels well when hiking a path through the wilderness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the world of professional selling, trail leaders are\nthose who have they have invested the time and effort to well identify their\nclient\u2019s ideal experience. They identify all the possible interaction points\nbetween buyers and sellers, end-user and vendors. Trail leaders are a minority.\nMost sellers are not as invested in understanding their client\u2019s experience.\nThey allow their interactions with their clients to wander more randomly, and do\nless to understand what a client is actually experiencing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sandler Research Center survey \u201cThe Client Experience\u201d recently\nasked respondents about their Client\u2019s Experience. 49% of respondents replied\nthat they were among the trail leaders \u2013 those who best understood their\ntypical client\u2019s journey once they engaged with their company. Conversely, 4%\nof respondents identified as wanderers, with little understanding of the client\njourney. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Jonathan Farrington, director of the survey, \u201cThe\nClient Journey map is the key to knowing what is involved in a customer\u2019s\npurchasing decisions. The who, what, where, when, why, and how that derived\nthem to select one product over the other.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Client Journey, there will be many Critical\nMoments. Critical Moments, Farrington points out, are \u201cthe points in the client\nrelationship with a client where you have the opportunity to earn their true\nloyalty by engaging with them.\u201d These points prompt you to focus on the\nclient\u2019s experience, both actual and desired. Such an approach stands in sharp contrast\nto the transactional relationship, which may be mundane and may take the client\nfor granted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge for salespeople and marketers is to lead the\nway, having recognized those Critical Moments ahead of time \u2026 and having identified\nthe places where your organization may not be meeting the requirements of the\nCritical Moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much has been written about the customer experience. But how\nmuch action have we taken on what we\u2019ve read? Just how important is it to us to\ninvest the time and resources necessary to truly understand the client journey?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sandler Research Center survey reveals that when\ncomparing the trail leaders and the wonderers, those who best understand their\nclient\u2019s journey versus those who least understand their client journey,\nseveral important distinctions emerge. Trail leaders are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n