How the self-serve B2B buying experience is changing everything.
I previously posted on the topic of how leading B2B marketing and sales models are losing touch with what today’s Buyers demand. In other words the rapidly growing demand for a self-serve B2B buying experience is fundamentally changing GTM. And with that change we must think about how to fully align operations to the Buyer – not the other way around.
The Fundamental Problem
As I said in that post, the fundamental problem with these models is that they are inherently operational. They’re internal; intended to drive how the business functions in relation to the buying process. They are not geared toward the Buyer who wants to SELF-SERVE that process.
Now we built Splashmetrics to work with most all leading models. This way you can select/customize whatever model you’re currently using to align the Buyer’s self-serve journey to your own sales process. The benefit is that everyone continues to speak the same operational language. But, more importantly, your sales reps know the kinds of questions your Buyers have in each of these stages – so you can provide the AI-driven sales content needed to interactively answer those questions as they self-serve the process.
Most all of these models from Gartner ABM, to SPIN, to SPICED, etc. generally map to a 5 stage pipeline. That’s good because once a Buyer is engaged in the self-serve sales pipeline you’ll typically get no more than 5 sales content touches to convince them to purchase.
But what about MEDDIC? It’s undoubtedly one of the most effective sales models out there. But I would argue that it’s extremely operational, not Buyer-centric. At least not on its face. So what happens to it in today’s world of self-serve Buying?
The Particulars of MEDDIC
As noted above, we need to start by thinking about WHAT SPECIFIC ANSWERS THE BUYER NEEDS at each stage of their journey through the self-serve pipeline to justify the purchase – and how that fits MEDDIC. Here’s what that might look like:
IDENTIFY PAIN – I need to first be confident that your solution solves our business challenge
COMPETITION – I then need to know how your solution is better than those other vendors we’re looking at
METRICS – I then need to see exactly how your solution provides quantifiable impact to our business
DECISION CRITERIA – Finally, I need to able to check these boxes for myself and others on my buying committee
If you can do these things for me through 3-4 hyper-personalized smart content assets, not only am I getting the answers I need to become your CHAMPION, I can personally bring my ECONOMIC BUYER into this same content journey where THEY will get answers personalized to THEIR specific needs and concerns – all before lunch.
And all the while, WE are providing your sales team the valuable Buyer-direct data in each of these areas…in real time.
The DECISION/PAPER PROCESS then become the topic of discussion when we reach out to close the deal.
Isn’t this a true win/win?
I’d love to hear your perspective!