When choosing a buyer enablement platform, you need to make sure that it can actually address the challenges you face. Here, we’ll go through the most common challenges that come from a lack of buyer enablement, so that you can get an idea of what problems your platform needs to address.
To find a buyer enablement platform that gives you the best value, you need to figure out why you need it. The question, then, is what business problems you want to tackle and what pains you’re looking to address. In the next section, we’ve gathered some of the most common business problems connected to buyer enablement. This, in turn, can help you identify the problems that your new platform needs to be able to address.
The top business problems that come from a lack of buyer enablement
1. Your champions can’t get buy in
More often than not, your deal is initiated by someone who sees what others don’t. This person is usually your champion, and they are the one who will convince others of how great your product actually is. They are supposed to show your value, persuade their peers or buying comittee and ultimately get buy in from the right people.
The problem is, this person oftentimes struggle to articulate the value porposition of products, and can’t sell it like your sales reps can. The result is oftentimes that a deal takes longer to close, or falls apart altogether.
2. You’re struggling to build rapport with all stakeholders
Buying processes now involve more people than it used to and managing all these stakeholders can be a bit of a puzzle. Oftentimes, sales reps fail to address every one of these and show how their needs are actually met. They might even fail to identify decision makers, or notice new stakeholders that come into the process along the way.
This can mean that key stakeholders don’t get the information they need – and won’t feel like their needs are met. Which, in turn, can have you lose deals you should have won, or that your sales process gets prolonged.
3. You’re having a hard time getting your buyers on the same page
Addressing every stakeholder is one thing. Making sure they’re all aligned, and actually want to sign, is another. It is also something that many sales organizations struggle with.
There is a good reason for this. Stakeholders on the buyer’s side typically represent different roles and areas, with different starting points and needs. They may not need a product for the same reason. They may have different requirements and they may have a hard time agreeing on a purchase. Something that can be a big challenge for sales reps, who may see their deals get stalled because their stakeholders aren’t on the same page.
4. Your buyers aren’t engaged
It is hard to keep buyer engagement going for the entirety of a buying process – especially when your buyers might be involved in mutiple buying journeys. The problem with this is, a failure to keep your buyers engaged and active comes with a risk: your deal might lose momentum and end up falling before the finish line. As a result, you may see that deals trickle out. Your sales reps might lose the deals they should have won, and even those they thought they were winning.
5. You fail to build trust throughout the sales process
You probably know that the stakes are high in B2B sales and that trust is a hard currency. Still, many companies struggle to build trust with their buyer throughout the sales process, and fail to mitigate any worries that buyers have. This can be an obstacle for even the greatest sales reps, as any perception of risk on the buyers’ side will probably stall, or halt, the deal.
Choosing a buyer enablement platform that addresses your pain
If you recognize any of the pains mentioned above, or feel like one of these pains is absolutely critical to solve, you now have a better idea of what to look for in a buyer enablement platform. Whatever tool you choose should be able to help you address your pain and enable your buyer at each step of the way. And, when you’re looking at different offerings, remember this: a sales enablement tool makes it easier for your sellers to sell, while a buyer enablement tool makes it easier to buy from you. In other words, the platform you choose should offer your buyer the support they need and make buying from you a a smooth and relevant experience from start to finish.
Did you know? SP_CE can help you tackle each of the pains we talked about, while giving your buyer a great and personal experience from day 1. Making it easier to buy from you, so that you can up your win rate and shorten your sales cycles. Contact our sales team and we’ll show you how it works.
