That, however, does not invalidate the research. I will agree with the words of Mike Weinberg that this should be the death knell to “these nouveau ‘experts’ … who have been pushing the social selling Kool-Aid” saying there is no reason to reach out to prospects and that you should wait for your phone to ring.įar too many pundits have misused the research to push their services, and tell low-performing salespeople what they want to hear. The Problem Is The Pundits Not The Research I don’t know many people that would disagree with this sentiment (even those claiming death to the previous research). That customers today do not need salespeople like they once did, and that the way they assess problems, vet solutions and buy has changed radically. It simply states what is obvious to most.
Strategic targeting of prospects is fruitless.Customers refuse to talk to salespeople early in the process.I’ve never thought any differently, nor to my knowledge has CEB or any other original research firm that studies the issue. What I find most interesting about that finding is how absolutely, unremarkable it is. “The new way to think about b-to-b buying is that human interactions still occur and matter, and that the rise of digital marketing doesn’t mean those interactions go away.”
So, apparently we now have several reputable research firms that present research findings that dispute each other…or do we?Īgain with the disclaimer that I have not seen the source report from SiriusDecisions, at first blush I do not think these two studies are as opposing as they first appear. I’ve since seen research from several other firms and others that align with the research from CEB. That study claimed “57% of a typical purchase decision is made before a customer even talks to a supplier.” In 2013 that number was revised to be 65%. The study that I often refer to is one from CEB, originally conducted in 2011 and updated in 2013. There have, however, been other studies that preceded SiriusDecision’s 2013 report and have followed it as well. The 67% statistic that is being referred to relates to a study that SiriusDecisions released in 2013 where they claimed, “ 67% of the buyer’s journey is now being done digitally.” There are a variety of studies highlighting how customers have changed their approach as a result of the impact of the Internet. So I’ve spent considerable time reviewing what I can get of the study (full disclosure: I have not seen the study, nor have I found anyone to give any real specifics about it) and assessing what, if any, impact this new data has on the approach we implement and recommend to our clients. I freely admit that I regularly highlight some of these studies, so if it turns out the data we base much of our go-to-market approaches on are wrong, then it’s important that we change. A number of sales side coaches and consultants jumped on the news claiming victory in their quest to demonstrate the importance of proactive sales in the process. This is an important finding, as several research studies do in fact indicate that customers are taking on more and more of the buying process on their own without necessarily engaging with salespeople. As one sales consultant commented, the study “breaks the myth that buyer’s today are 67% of the way through their buying process before engaging with a salesperson, and that it’s fruitless to cold call and proactively pursue prospects.” Specifically, their research supports the idea that buyers do, in fact, engage with salespeople throughout the entire B2B sales process. One of their findings puts a dent in a commonly used statistic used to highlight the changing nature of the seller-buyer relationship. On May 14 , SiriusDecisions released findings from its 2015 B-to-B Buyer Study, making quite a splash in the process.