052. Breaking Down B2B Buying Committees: Strategies for Targeting Key Decision-Makers

Foreign this is Emilio Garcia. Welcome to another episode of Demand Gen Studio. And as always, Gabby Garcia is here with me. How are you, Gabby?

Hi Emilio. You're fine. How are you?

I'm doing good. Back to action. I was Boston for the last week at I came, you know, my. With my mind blown away by all the things that happened there. So I'm really excited to share that over the next few days and weeks over our different sources of content for everybody to take some insights, as much as we can share. That will be, that will be great. Today we are going to discuss breaking down B2B buying committees and the strategies that you need to look upon depending on the key decision makers that you have. And I think it's a very, you know, compelling conversation. Especially because as we have said in previous episodes, while B2B marketers are targeting accounts companies, at the end of the day we are talking to people, right? Individuals, we are targeting individuals and so we need to understand their needs. But the, the, the twist on B2B is that while the demographic factors matter, right? It matters your age range, it matters where do you live, it matters your behaviors and affiliations and all that. The most important component will be what is your function and your role and your seniority and especially for the, for the buyer journey of the company. What is the role, if you want to use that word, that a person assumes during the buying process. And this is a critical difference because, for example, the biggest thing that I can say is that there are people that individually, personally, they can be very impulsive buyers, right? Very risk tolerant in their purchasing decisions, but within the organization, because of their role, they might be very conservative and risk averse, right? So your professional role really impacts how you behave on that process for your product. And so the insight that you can get from a person from their consumer behavior do not necessarily translate very well to their professional behavior or in this case buying behavior as a company or an account. So I think that is the reason you want to explore why or add that filter or layover overlay for people when you are doing that process. I think that's important. So definitely let us start understanding the first part which is understanding those buying committees, right? And some questions obviously that exist are why do they exist, right? Why we have buying committees in B2B and not necessarily a lot of them on B2C. And I will say they do exist sometimes, right? Consider purchases that take a long time, especially if they have a high price tag, they're not taken in isolation. For example, very few people, unless they are single, buy houses on their own, you know, not involving anyone else. And even single buyers, you know, they might involve their parents or friends or extended family. They don't take that decision in isolation, right? Part of that is what transpires in B2B purchases. The reason buying committees exist is because usually the complexity, the price and the risk implications of the purchase itself are so big that one person doesn't have the authority and will not feel, if.

Not safe, at least confident enough to.

Take the purchase on its own. So as mechanism to spread the risk and also obviously to improve the chances that you take the best decision. Buying comedians create themselves and, and this is the other important thing. And actually one, you know, insight that I can tell you from my time on Inbound last week is that we might think that some of those buying communities are managed directly by a person like, you know, someone assembling a team and saying, we're going to buy this. And that's not necessarily what happens because some of those roles arose because of the process itself, right? So for example, there might be someone that is interested on starting the research and that person might trigger the user that will do the research for sure. But when they present solution inside, then some blockers will arise, right? Some or some people that are, you know, they have been trying to, to move that, that purchase for a long time, they might show up and say, hey, I'm quite interested because I've been, you know, fighting for this implementation for a long time, but I don't have the authority to move it forward. So there is, yes, definitely some component of someone championing the process. But most of the time those decisions will happen organically. And the other thing that might happen is that in very, very large organizations, those buying committees might be coming from different departments taking the same decision over and over, right? So it is the same account, but are different groups of people that maybe not even related. I think that's part of the reason why those buying communities emerge. And obviously the other big difference is that these buying communities are not just people that have the same role over and over, right? Like, oh yeah, well, I have this project management tool and the buying community is not just the project manager. All the project managers that work at the company that are interested in buying rather is people's roles depend on how they are impacted by the purchase itself, right? The users, the people that benefit from the implementation, the people that will not be benefit, benefited from the implementation. The, the group of people that will have to lay out economic and, and human resources to make it happen. So all those individuals will present themselves in different roles and obviously some of them will be in favor and some of them will be against the change. Right. I think laid out that it will be a good time to start talking about breaking down those roles. What are the roles that we have some there right there.

I got some comment about that. You, you mentioned the importance of identifying those people. Right?

Right.

The. The ones in the. In the comedy. And I guess that there's such huge amount of people that will like you said, be part of those. Of those comedies and the roles that they. They may have might vary on the way that they provide even solutions to the company itself. And there's a lot, I guess that we, we can put names to them like the ones that are initiators, influencers, decision makers. The ones that are the gatekeepers and the users. Those are the ones that I will. Let's just say that that's how we can break down that committee and those will have specific roles within the company that might benefit from the solution that you are trying to provide to them. And they will have different approaches from those roles within the company within that committee that will have them thinking if your solution is the one that they want the one. Let's just say that for a key decision makers and their roles for an example. And let's just say that we work for a software company that provides advanced data analytics solutions to businesses and our company develop an analytics platform and let's just say that that that platform can revol. Revolutionize other companies and the way that they analyze data. And we are trying to sell this, this platform to a comedy. And within that comedy there are potential clients and obviously within the organization. Let's just put in a scenario. How can we break down that comedy within like I said, the specific roles in the specific parts of the company within that organization. Let's just say that an initiator will be. Let's put a name, I don't know which name you like Sara and she's the head of Data Science and she will identify the need for a more advanced analytics solution just to keep the industry trends. Right. She will be like initiator. She will find that. Then you got an influencer like Mark and he's the IT manager and he will research and suggest the potential softwares that will or potential solution softwares that we have to use to the comedy based on obviously his technical knowledge. Right. Or expertise. Then you have the decision maker like Jane and she's the chief financial officer and she will have the authority to approve that obviously significant budget allocations that you will have to provide during that process, of the process purchase. And you got the gatekeeper like Alex, he's the IT director and he controls over the access to Jane and he will filter that information and the options that she had presented. And like in, I don't know, the final role that we can break down is the user. And Emily, which is the data analytics analyst, she will be the primary obviously user of this platform that is purchased, which is part of the, of the comedy. So that's like a way to analyze the different roles within the organization. Not obviously because of the role that they imply to the organization, but to the comedy itself and how you can approach to them in different stages or the different parts of the, of each one.

I love, I love that breakdown. And yeah, I agree that that will be a typical flow. I will add that another variable to that will be that smaller deals and obviously smaller companies will have smaller buying committees where, where people is presenting themselves in different roles right at the same time. So as in a smaller committee, someone will be both the initiator and the decision maker, for example, and someone might be the financial, you know, the decision maker and the blocker to some extent if they are not happy with the implementation. And obviously in larger implementations, larger deals, those roles are assigned to one person and even in some cases to multiple people might have the same role. So it's very important to obviously understand those roles. And if we start thinking about the strategies that you will use to target those key decision makers, obviously you want to identify them. Every industry will be different. And again, as we were saying, depending on the company size, you will have a different definition for those roles and how many people fit in that category. But in general, the biggest thing for influencing and targeting those key decision makers and the rest of the buying committee is that you have to consider timing into the equation. Right? So for example, and I'm not saying that this is the only one that you should do it, but at the beginning, when a company has no intent, it is, it doesn't make sense to differentiate the message for each of the individuals of the buying committee, because they might not be all of them familiar with this, the problems and the solutions to begin with, right? So technically, in theory, the potential blocker you should start with maybe explaining why your solution is better and different. What are the benefits? So they lower their barrier and say I'm in. But at the beginning, maybe that potential blocker is not even aware of the problems and the solutions. So it Makes no sense to try to handle objections when that member is not even, you know, aware of what you are offer. So at the beginning, probably using a more holistic approach and trying to educate all potential committee members about the problems, about the solution will be the best approach. And as the initiators start showing intent and we start to understand that they are progressing to, through the journey, then we will start using that progression as a cue for delivering specific messages and even moving off from digital engagements and digital approaches to more direct approaches like making phone calls, sending emails, even having conversations, especially with decision makers and blockers to overcome the progression of the sale or the progression of the buyer. So I think yes, definitely you want to identify the members of the committee, yes, you want to start delivering some messages if you, if you don't want to wait for them to show intent. But at the beginning, you don't have to make a super complex. I think at the beginning is just awareness, association between the problem that you solve and your brand. That is the first thing that you gotta solve, right? That people understand that for what you do, there's a company, yours. And so if they can remember when they see the logo, what, what is it that you do, then you have won one already half of the battle. Right after they start researching, that's when it start making sense to differentiate the message and start, you know, providing the right information. And to a deeper level, the, the conversations that each of, of the members of the committee needs to understand. I think that's, that's an important thing to do. Now obviously moving beyond targeting, there are going to be challenges, right? And I feel there are many things that you can say about challenges to overcome when you are working with buying committees. But for me the biggest one is all the things that you don't know that you don't know. Right. We have said these many, many times that the biggest challenge for B2B organizations is that set they set up their process, their sales process from the company's perspective rather than from the customer perspective. If your deal stages are identify the need, I set up a meeting, I sent a contract I requested. So if it's always from the company perspective, you have a challenge because you are not putting yourself in the, in the shoes of the customer. And so rather you have to flip it and say, well, what is potentially going on on their side that I'm not aware of that might derail these sales. Right. And this is probably the biggest reason why we insist a lot on how demand generation programs are helpful for, for B2B sales because I was actually another insight that I remember I got from Inbound. So all of us know or have heard that the buyer advances their processes almost up to 70% on their own before involving any, any seller into the decision. So that's kind of known, right? That they do research, ask around and by the time they pick up the phone, they already know a lot about your solution. But insight that I got from a presentation that a person did from the company 6Sense came up with this understanding that they asked to people that was doing that first phone call. What percentage of the time when you started researching a product did you end up buying the first company that you called? And the answer was 85% of the time. And that for me is, was like mind blowing. Is like. It means that if you are the second person that a buyer research or ask, not research that called to, then your chances of winning are only 16%. Or you can flip it and say that if you are the first person that you are the first company that a buyer reached out to, then you have, you have a 16% chance of losing the deal. Right. If you, if you, if you do something very badly. So those are the things that you don't know. The conversations that happen outside of your buying process are the ones that you want to discover the Most and where B2B sales become sales. Right. So it's important to know discover the committee. You know, if someone reach out to you and you identified as an influencer, an influencer, who is the decision maker? Who are the potential blockers? Who are the potential users? If they call you, is are they. Obviously the buyer sometimes will not release this information, but ideally is how many of the other, you know, competitors are they evaluating? And if you can get the. Are we the first ones that you call? That will be also amazing to know because it will give you a high, a high probability of winning. And obviously it means that you educated that buyer in the, in the past, right? That is not the first time that they heard of you from you. So I think the biggest, one of the biggest challenge to overcome for working with B2B buying communities is discovering as much information as possible of what's happening on their turf, not what's happening on your turf. Right. And that's where you, because you are making assumptions, you can use advertising and other channels to answer the questions, handle our objections, discovering the buying committee and so improving the chances of you succeeding and making the sale. I think that's probably one of the biggest advice that I have for everybody that is listening Right now I think that's pretty much for this will be a short episode which I like. Right. Insights right away. So just economize it as we discuss. Buying committees are important to B2B sales because usually the size of the sale, the complexity of the decision and the risk associated cannot be assumed. One wide person, right. And so users come up with the with involving end up involving willingly or not other individuals in the company. And you as a seller have to understand the dynamic of that group to cater to the right message. Obviously you want to target that buying committee as soon as possible as soon as you have identified the account. But one quick recommendation is at the beginning. You don't have to differentiate the message right away. It's better to just start implementing the concept of associated the problem and solution with your brand. And when users start engagement engaging, especially when you have that initiator researching around, that's when you start to differentiate the message and use different channels of communications to make a deeper impact. And finally we said that you know, if you want to overcome challenges on that decision making process, probably the biggest challenge that you have is all the things that you don't know that are happening on the buyer side. Right. Who are the members of the committee, what is their influence and what are questions are they asking as much as you can learn from outside sources about that and obviously asking your. The your point of contact and building that rapport so they can share with you all that that kind of information. The higher will be the chances that your sales process will be this a successful one and that you will win the business of that prospect. So with that being said, I think we are done for today. And as always I want to invite you all to our next episode and be on the lookout for more sessions. We continue to make more episodes on our webinars where we actually show you know some of the techniques that we use and tactics that you can implement right away and I don't know Gabby, you have any other comments?

Not just only just invite people that to our website. If you find this podcast informative and valuable, which I know you will because Emilio has a great way to make you know these things. And you already heard him, he went to Inbound so he had a lot of information to share with you guys. And we invite you to subscribe for more in depth discussions that we're gonna have even though on our webinars are heading a week ahead. Right. I guess that's the, that's the one. And obviously they're all related to businesses, marketing and obviously, the strategies that you will, you will have to, to implement nowadays. So I encourage you guys to, to follow us and thank you for, for being on another episode with us.

Thank you. Until next one. Bye.

See you earlier.

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