It takes more than benefits to motivate a buyer

Value = Benefits – Cost.

It’s simple, right? If the benefits in your value proposition exceed the costs, then it’s logical that the buyer will become a customer.

But when it comes to motivating buyers to move forward in their buying cycle, the benefits in your value proposition are not the end of the story. They are the beginning.

Here are four factors that affect whether the buyer moves forward in the buying cycle. They are present at every stage of the buying cycle. Pay attention to these factors and you’ll accelerate the rate at which buyers take action.

Moving toward what the buyer values – Value is what the buyer wants. Creating value at every stage of the buyer’s journey is the North Star of Marketing and Sales. If you can create value at each stage, answering questions and solving problems, the buyer is more motivated to move forward.

Moving away from a troubling problem – No matter how much value you create for a business buyer, if the buyer does not perceive that there is a problem, your conversation will go nowhere.

Most businesses will buy only if there are negative consequences of not buying. If they believe that the pain of inaction is less than the pain of action, then they won’t act.

As Hugh Macfarlane points out:

In other words, what will it cost them to do nothing? The pain of action includes your price, implementation time and disruption. But what will it cost them if they don’t act – the “do nothing” option? If they believe that the pain of action is greater than the pain of inaction, they won’t act.

Buyers live in an interconnected web of problems, many of which they have simply learned to live with. Your job is to show how the problem that you know how to solve is the one that the buyers feel they MUST solve.

Reducing the friction of working with you – Reducing friction in your company is a factor that you have a lot of control over. Friction takes its form in the myriad of little things that your company does that make it more difficult for the buyer to do business with you. It starts at the beginning of the buyer’s journey, well before you are even aware of the buyer’s potential interest.

From making it easy to find information about the problem the buyer is trying to solve … to simplicity in your contracts and ordering process … it is a constant battle in your company to find these sources of friction for the buyer and to make the path more smooth.

Reducing the friction inside the buyer’s company – You have much less control over the friction inside the buyer’s company. In fact, as sellers we are often uninformed about the nature of the friction inside the buyer’s company. We proceed with our selling activities, not knowing that ahead of us is an obstacle in the trail that will prevent the sale from going forward. Even the buyer you are working with is likely to be unaware of many of these obstacles.

Organizations have a system and that they don’t like to change. The more you can minimize the amount of change the more likely the buyer will be motivated to proceed. The more you can find and address the obstacles to change, the better chance you have of engaging with the buyer.