How to Enable Your Sales Team to Execute at the Buyer-Level

The fastest path to improving sales results is to effectively translate the business strategy into execution, at the critical point of sale. Your salespeople need to be equipped to act in a way that's focused on nothing but the buyer. That focus is the key to enabling your sales team to execute repeatedly at the buyer-level.

Below are some key questions to assess your own organization on that enablement:

Is your organization aligned on what's important for the buyer?

If you read our blog at any frequency, you know that we write about this topic often. The reason is because if your leadership can't agree on what's most important for the buyer, your salespeople can't execute. Each rep will have his or her own process and frankly, without direction they'll make it up. You'll lack consistency in your buyer messages and in your qualification process. Remember, if you don't take the time to find out what's important to the buyer, your buyers won't take the time to find you.

Is your differentiation articulated in a way that has meaning to the buyer?

Your sales reps may know what makes your solution different than the competition, but do they know how to articulate it in a way that has meaning to the buyer?

Too many organizations fail to establish customer relevance for differentiators. Many sales organizations are plagued with reps that show up and throw up their differentiation whether those factors matter to the customer or not. They spend too much time presenting differentiation without customer context. That’s going to get you into trouble. Your sales teams need to be equipped with the ability to set the customer context before you talk about why you’re different than the competition.

Do you know how to help them differentiate from "do nothing" and "do it internally"?

Defining that differentiation and its buyer relevance helps your reps beat the competition, but it also helps account executives compete against "Do Nothing" and "Do it Internally". As you know, some sales organizations face these two alternatives more than they do an actual competitor. But, because these competitors aren't people, your reps may be getting hung up on differentiating against them.

• When you position your solution against do nothing, your salespeople need the ability to differentiate against the pain of the problem, how will your solution impact the current pain?
• When you position your solution against do it internally, it requires an ability to differentiate based on the outcome. How can your solution get to the necessary outcome faster and more efficiently?

If you have defined differentiation, it should help your team articulate how you can bring a positive alternative to the current business pain and/or how you can deliver better and faster than the alternative of them doing it themselves.

Are your managers equipped to "provide the how" at the buyer-level?

If you need your reps to effectively execute, you need to ensure your managers are equipped to provide the how. For example, they can't simply look at a pipeline opportunity and tell the rep he/she needs to get higher in the organization or to identify a champion. They need to tell him/her how to do that. Without a way to repeatedly provide your reps with the how, they'll never be able to be successful at the buyer-level.

Do you know what qualifies a deal to move forward in the customer engagement process?

You need a qualification framework or methodology that everyone in your organization can work within. There are a thousand different qualification methodologies out there - the seventeen steps to this, the 45 ways to do this. You need a simple and tried and true methodology that enables your reps to know what deals to spend time on and perhaps more importantly, the deals they should avoid or stop pursuing.

There’s no faster way to equip your reps to execute at the buyer-level than to empower them to clearly articulate the value of your solution and what makes it different from the competition. Consistency in that message brings more revenue. Your reps will have more productive, qualified meetings that result in opportunities that close.