{"id":16597,"date":"2023-04-26T13:45:24","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T13:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sandler.com\/?p=16597"},"modified":"2023-06-02T15:07:35","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T15:07:35","slug":"four-pillars-technology-buyer-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandler.com\/blog\/four-pillars-technology-buyer-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"The Four Pillars of Technology for Sales Leaders | Pillar Four: The Buyer Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the last in a series of four articles that poses the question:
\nWhat is the intersection between optimal sales leadership\u2026 and the optimal use of today\u2019s technology?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are, we believe, four pillars of technology that support any modern sales team. The first pillar is an accurate, constantly updated sales process<\/strong><\/a>. The second pillar is our sales<\/strong> methodology<\/strong><\/a>. The third is our own technologically savvy sales leadership<\/strong><\/a>, which aligns the sales process and the methodology and sets the team culture.<\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s time to look at the final pillar \u2013 and for a lot of teams, this pillar is the easiest to overlook. It\u2019s all about the ways that you can use your technology can support you buyer\u2019s journey<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s usually pretty easy for us to think about the seller\u2019s <\/em>journey. That\u2019s our sales process, and most of us are accustomed to thinking about that journey, simply because we already know what our own decision-making process looks like for deciding who we want to work with (and who we don\u2019t). But what about the buyer\u2019s <\/em>decision-making process?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not all about us. As sales leaders, we want to learn to take a step back and ask ourselves what the buyer\u2019s journey looks like. We want to know what their investigative process is, what events are likely to trigger that process, and how they will typically make important decisions about what they\u2019re going to do next<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Of course, different organizations are going to have different ways of mapping out the buyer journey. Some are going to be very sophisticated; some will be more intuitive and informal. But no matter what your approach is, no matter what the size of your company or your team is, and no matter how complex or simple your selling cycle is, you can improve your team\u2019s efficiency by leveraging your technology to support the buyer\u2019s journey<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Consider: Your selling process has different stages. So does the buyer\u2019s journey. A prospective buyer in, the first stage of that journey is likely to be preoccupied with certain questions that you and your team can learn to predict \u2013 and be ready to address. Not only that \u2013 there\u2019s going to be a backstory. That same prospective buyer is going to have gone down certain predictable roads by the time they get to the first stage of the journey. Your team should understand what twists and turns those roads were likely to have presented, and what challenges and expectations the buyer is likely to have as a result. In other words, if you\u2019re not well briefed about the typical backstory that connects to each buyer stage, you\u2019re at a market disadvantage<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Once you have a deep understanding of your buyer\u2019s journey, you can use technology to give your team a much better chance of meeting the buyer where they are. This is important, because where the buyer is at that moment is where all the best discussions happen<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

So \u2013 what kind of information should your team members, as sellers, have readily available for buyers at any given stage of their journey? What types of facts and figures do buyers at that stage typically need to see? Which white papers? Which articles? What pressing problems are those buyers most likely to be grappling with? What options are they likely to have already explored? What white papers are they most likely to want to download from your website? What third-party stories are going to be most relevant to their world? You really can identify all of this information ahead of time \u2013 and use your CRM (or whatever internal system your team uses) to make sure the right buyer-focused information is easily accessible at the right time<\/strong>. Your technology needs to empower both your salespeople and your prospective buyers <\/em>to take part in conversations that connect the dots and uncover the truth.<\/p>\n

Remember: Buyers want different things at different stages of their journey.<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s your responsibility as sales leader to map out all the touch points and deploy all the relevant messaging and resources for each touch points. Most sales team do not do this. They don\u2019t to make it easy for buyers at a certain point in the journey to welcome the chance to have a conversation with someone on the sales team.<\/p>\n

Is this mapping and deploying process easy? Maybe not at first. That\u2019s because we\u2019re accustomed to viewing the sales process from the perspective of the seller. But if we can flip that around and start thinking about the buying process from the perspective of the buyer<\/em>, and leveraging our technology accordingly, we\u2019re going to create a significant competitive advantage for our team and our organization.<\/p>\n

Once you get into the habit of supporting your sales team by making good technology choices for each of these four critical pillars \u2013 sales process, sales methodology, leadership, <\/strong>and buyer journey <\/strong>\u2013 you\u2019re going to find that you\u2019ve created a well-oiled machine. Your team really can be the kind of machine that compresses sales cycles, creates more repeat business, and claims greater annual market share. Just understand that designing and running that machine means stepping up as the kind of leader who creates a steady stream of best practices for the team \u2013 and who is committed to becoming more of a scientist than an artist when it comes to aligning all of those best practices with the buyer journey.<\/p>\n

For help in getting a clearer sense of your buyer\u2019s journey, or in strengthening any of the other pillars we\u2019ve been discussing, contact us<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a9 2023 Sandler Systems, LLC.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the last in a series of four articles that poses the question: What is the intersection between optimal sales leadership \u2026 and the optimal use of today\u2019s technology? Now, it\u2019s time to look at the final pillar of technology for sales leaders: Buyer Journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":16604,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1120],"tags":[1410,1033,1319],"class_list":["post-16597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-customer-journey","tag-leadership","tag-technology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Four Pillars of Technology for Sales Leaders | Pillar Four: The Buyer Journey - Sandler<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Now, it\u2019s time to look at the final pillar of technology for sales leaders: leveraging technology to support the buyer\u00a0journey\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sandler.com\/blog\/four-pillars-technology-buyer-journey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Four Pillars of Technology for Sales Leaders | Pillar Four: The Buyer Journey - 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