Today buyers have more access than ever to invaluable information that can guide their needs, decisions and actions. Tomorrow they will have even more. So on and so forth.
High-quality content and thought leadership is becoming a norm in industries that have a presence on the internet. And while all that information, insight and education is “free” for the tuned-in, savvy buyer, it can also overwhelm to the point of indecision, avoidance and confusion.
In fact, in a recent Gartner Inc. research report, “Redefining the High-Performing Seller for the Information Era,” 89% of the more than 1,000 B2B buyers surveyed indicated that they found information encountered during a buying cycle high-quality — but the abundance of quality information ultimately hindered their decisions and trust of the information, leading to a smaller action that would have less disruption than originally planned.
When a Seller Becomes a Trusted Advisor
If buyers are not finding high-quality information as valuable as originally intended, then what do they seek?
Gartner found that buyers were more likely to engage in high-quality, low-regret deals when they had higher confidence in the information provided and low doubt of the seller. Essentially, when buyers could tell their seller was seeking to serve, not to sell, they gained greater confidence in moving forward with their buying decisions.
Additionally, a recent CSO Insights report found that buyers are keenly interested in talking about four things with sellers:
- A new insight
- How that insight proves a risk to their corporation
- How that insight proves a risk to the buyer specifically
- How their buying action could provide them a competitive advantage
Sellers Need to Make Sense
But talking about the right things is not enough. Serving a buyer does not manifest itself in sellers providing buyers boatloads of information, as Gartner has found. It is not telling buyers based on authority, one they may or may not trust yet, that you have uncovered an insight they may easily find contradicting information to with a quick Google search.
Rather, sellers can foster a relationship and build trust by:
- Speaking in terms of the buyer’s specific pains.
- Providing clarity of the complex, over-abundant information available to them by filtering and processing the information on behalf of the buyer.
- Collaborating with the buyer to evaluate the quality of information and helping them arrive at their own understanding.
Sellers who help their buyers make sense of their threats and opportunities, and who do so in a Seek to Serve™ spirit will simplify deal-making and encourage buyers to turn to you for honest, filtered, clear insights that will positively impact their business.
For more Seek to Serve, Not to Sell direction, download our free eBook.