This is part 5 of a 6 part series that goes through the entire buyer’s journey all the way from market awareness (how you make them aware) to post sale.
Here are the areas we covered:
Today is all about step 4 of the buyer’s journey which is all about the negotiation phase- where deals can and do fall apart. You’ll want to:
1- Structure the deal to close;
2 – Structure the deal to add more value and sell more. This way you can have repeat business and your acquisition costs go way down.
True Story of when Thought Leadership Saved The Day During Negotiation…
There was a situation where the negotiation of the deal was falling through. Literally the customer was ignoring their person putting the deal together (principle in the company).
The principal hadn’t established the KLT, he needed a 3rd party to come in and negotiate and bring it to contract.
That’s where thought leadership made the several million dollar deal –
Ultimately, you want to be positioned as a trusted advisor so your clients ask you – “what does good look like for you”? Pretty powerful stuff!
What Type of Content Do You Use In This Phase?
What type of information do you provide or should you provide to solidify your expert status as a trusted advisor? Value maps, information that tells them what the onboarding process looks like, information that tells them about how support works, basically what the “to -be” will look like after the sale and they begin the onboarding process…
It Doesn’t End At The Close
There is still a ton of work to do to make sure that you are seen as a trusted advisor. This paves the way for future sales – as long as you can provide the value. For this phase, you can solidify your expertise and increase the know like trust factor buy providing content that they need at this stage:
Think about it, they now need to see how this will work in a practical sense, so give them the information that answers those questions for them. Think customer maps, onboarding collateral, information that makes it easy for them to work with you. It shouldn’t be hard.
Remember that our clients are busy people and they just want a solution that will solve their business pain, and when they start to implement that solution, they should be informed every step of the way, and they should be comfortable. This paves the way for future sales.
What we discussed in our “Interesting Tech” segment:
https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/16/how-should-b2b-startups-think-about-growth-not-like-b2c/
What growth stage is your B2B startup in?
The best growth strategy for your company ultimately depends on whether you’re in an incubation, iteration, or scale stage.
At the end of the day, it’s about building and growing your business to continually acquire recurring, repeatable revenue!
About the Hosts:
Gloria Gunn is the CEO of TechnicalThoughtLeader.com and has personally developed thought leadership selling strategies for technology companies that have been responsible for 7- figure deals. Gloria also successfully positions her clients as experts with authority so that they can go upmarket and close real business.
Ed Golod is a C-suite sales & value expert and has personally been responsible for closing over $260M in sales throughout his career and has grown a business to $40M then took an exit. Ed regularly is renowned for his unique ability to create, articulate and leverage value. Ed’s sales systems have generated millions of dollars for him and his clients.
Ed can be reached at ed@technicalthoughtleader.com or on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/edwardgolod