Just Because Customers Can Find Their Own Solutions Doesn’t Mean They Will

There’s lot of data in the public domain. Buyer 2.0 is Internet-savvy. So they will help themselves to all that information and find solutions to their pain areas by themselves. Ergo salespersons should stop trying to sell solutions to potential customers.

This is the sum of essence of one prevailing school of thought in B2B sales (cf. this LinkedIn Discussion Thread).

We beg to differ with this advice. It can be catastrophic, at least in our field of B2B technology with $$$$$ ticket sizes.

We don’t deny that there’s lot of data in the public domain about pain areas, solutions and individual vendor offerings, along with ratings, reviews and social proof. Nor do we claim that buyers are Luddites. But most B2B technology buyers expect – and gladly accept – external assistance to figure out how all this information applies to their specific circumstances.

There are many reasons for this:

Research is not free
Self-Service is painful
Can’t find my solution

Let’s elaborate on each one of these reasons.

#1. Research Is Not Free

There’s a huge amount of effort required to compile and analyze the information available on the Internet. This costs a lot of time and / or money. If vendors clamor to do this for free, why should prospects decline the help?

Until solutions appear on Google 1st page, customers will consult vendors about their pain areas. https://t.co/VMhmgJyyRs

— Ketharaman Swaminathan (@s_ketharaman) November 18, 2015

In our experience, savvy buyers accept free-of-cost help from sales, while continuing to tap other sources in parallel to validate sales-provided inputs.

#2. Self-Service Is Painful

Many brand / vendor websites suck. Prospects go round-and-round without being to find what they want.

Take Bose for example. When I was shopping for headphones recently, I found at least three problems with its banner ad and landing page, as outlined in the following illustration.

The brand’s online presence was a serious conversion killer. I decided to postpone the purchase of the headphones until I found the time to visit its store.

The situation is not any better in B2B. MTS, the leading MNO, recently advertised a new plan on my Yahoo Mail! homepage. When I clicked through to its landing page, the advertised plan was not available for my state (Maharashtra).

I started pulling my hair wondering why MTS bothered to advertise this plan in my location.

Not surprisingly, a lot of B2B content goes waste.

#3. Can’t Find My Solution

Now, prospects who labor on and overcome the above hurdles will find the proverbial pot of gold at the end of rainbow, right?

Wrong.

Prospects often find multiple solutions for the same pain point. Take the following example of a retailer suffering from pilferage in its warehouse.

Warehouse Pilferage: One Problem, Three Solutions

Pain Area: High pilferage from warehouse.

Potential Solutions:

(A) Double down on security guards

(B) Install CCTV

(C) Use RFID tags to monitor movement of goods.

How does this retailer select one of the three options?

I guess it would conduct some more research. In all likelihood, even if it manages to lay its hands on the pros and cons of each of the above alternatives on the public domain, it will still be undecided.

An RFID solutions provider has a great opportunity to engage with the retailer and steer it towards Option C.

Per contra, if the RFID vendor does not engage with the retailer at this stage, the retailer might choose Option A or B on its own (or under the influence of their respective vendors). Once that happens, it is virtually impossible for the RFID vendor to get back in the reckoning for this purchase.

If all else fails, there’s always schmoozing.