Seth Godin wrote recently that the most common frustration he sees is from B2B marketers “who can’t figure out why more people won’t buy their product.” These marketers use rational arguments to explain why their product is superior to the buyer’s current method of doing things. But the customer doesn’t buy and the marketer is mystified at why the buyer is so irrational.
Seth’s advice to these marketers about their buyers is to “embrace how irrational they are.”
But perhaps B2B buyers are more rational than we’d like to think. Maybe their behavior is completely rational if we were to see the world as they see it. From their point of view it’s not just a choice of the current method of doing things versus a superior product. From their point of view, they may not even be aware that a problem exists, or that it’s serious enough to warrant attention. They may be aware of the problem, but not know how to make the business case to their company, or how to overcome political opposition. They may understand the merits of a superior product, but not be confident they can trust the company that is selling it.
Buyers are rational. The problem isn’t the buyers, it’s us. The challenge is for us to understand the buyer’s journey, to develop a sales process that maps to the buyer’s journey, and to create value for the buyer at each step of the way.
Yes, there are times in the buyer’s journey when learning more about the product and why it’s superior is exactly what the buyer wants to learn. But it’s only one part of the larger set of questions that we need to provide to these rational customers.
Some other related posts you might find useful:
About David Crankshaw