Persona Centric Selling®

Bridging the Gap Between Sales & Marketing with Buyer Personas

Tony Zambito — 2008-05-13T19:22:15-04:00

The issue of sales and marketing alignment has been floating in the corporate hallways for several years now. What I am finding most interesting is that the definitions surrounding the "sales & marketing alignment" conundrum are, to use the proverbial expression, all over the map. What prompted me to think about this was Dave Stein's post, Marketing's Knowledge of Salespeople, on his Commentary on Sales Leadership blog. The main tenet of his post is best said by Dave:

"What’s going on is that many CEOs, COOs, GMs, and other executives haven’t figured out that sales and marketing alignment is more about culture, philosophy and business orientation than it is about marketing providing sales with leads, marketing messages and sexy product brochures and sales selling enough so everyone, especially those in marketing, gets to keep their jobs."

I am sure some will find this to be quite a provocative statement. One thing I can say is that there have been many undertones in recent webinars, blog posting, and articles about this gap in culture. I use undertone because most of the discussions seems to be around marketing "placating" sales with leads and getting them to make more money - without really addressing what lies underneath the gap. Yes, sales wants these things and marketing is more than happy to oblige because they need to see successes in their product marketing strategies.

Dave's point that the gap is best defined through culture, philosophy, and business orientation gets to another crucial point. That is, that these three variables create different prisms or lenses by which marketing and sales views the customer. Marketing and sales, through their divergent cultures, can wind up with vastly different views of the customer. The next time you are in a meeting with marketing and sales representation, perk up your ears and listen to the conversational tennis match of "what I think the customer wants" literally bouncing off the walls of the conference room. Like Dave, I served as a VP in both sales and marketing. The adjustment to the "culture" of each was pronounced. What is unfortunate is that the gap has created an environment whereby each area doesn't garner a high opinion of each. And both claim that the "other side" just doesn't "get it."

How do we get sales and marketing to see through the same lenses and have a common view of the customer? Buyer Personas offers the opportunity to create this common view and become the bridge that soars over the raging cultural waters running below. Buyer Personas are archetypal or fictional representations of a company's buyer. They are grounded in qualitative field work that helps to create a common view of goals, issues, motivators, needs, and insight. More importantly, once they are created, they introduce the much needed objectivity into the discussions about customers.

By creating and using buyer personas, organizations can begin to see real gains in the effectiveness of marketing and sales strategies. Why? Buyer personas can achieve alignment around a common view of the buyer. One of the most influential books I have ever read was The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge. In it, the author has a chapter about how to place a hotly contested issue in the middle of the conference room and create objectivity. Buyer Personas offers a very tangible and literal way to make this happen. Placing the buyer persona(s) in the middle of the conference room is an effective way to introduce objectivity and to have the focal point be about the common view of the customer. This elevates the cultural and business orientation strengths of each area to a complementary level.

Creating buyer personas is not as easy as it may sound and I cannot certainly give it the full treatment in this post. Today, we are seeing smart thinking organizations that are now training and staffing buyer persona experts in their marketing and sales groups who can steer each department towards this common view of the customer. These buyer persona experts truly offer the potential to bring to life the voice of the customer in a way that has not been achieved before.

Two Buyer Trends Affecting Sales and Selling Profession

Tony Zambito — 2008-04-24T10:55:19-04:00

If you think about one of your most recent household purchases, such as a car, grill, or even a lawn mower, it is a safe bet you found yourself on the Internet. You were pouring over specifications, opinions, consumer reviews, buying experiences, and where to buy. On some of these items, you were pleasantly surprised to find that you can "customize" the product to your specification and even have it shipped to your front door!

Remember, just a short few years ago, when we were first able to use the Internet for so called "research." Basically, we found nice brochures that were uploaded and we could view or download. Herein lays one of two trends that are affecting sales and the selling profession. The trend that buyers will conduct research before purchases has been underway for a while. However, what is changing in the business world, as we are seeing with the consumer world, is the ability to not only research but to configure a solution that fits a specific problem or issue. This can be a scary proposition for sales and the selling profession. What it could easily mean is that buyers today can "cut out" sales altogether. Buyers may rightfully be asking: "Why do I need sales representation when I could easily do this myself?"

The second trend affecting sales and just beginning to gain a foothold in the consciousness of buyers is the concept of "social media networking". For those of us who have been around a while in the selling profession, who could forget those days of your first sales manager beating you over the head about referrals. We are all sure to remember the VP of Sales screaming at the top of his or her lungs at the all important National Sales Meeting: "Referrals are the lifeblood of our sales success!!!" And buyers back then would ask and some meekly: "Do you have any references I can talk to?" The almost shocking rise of social media networking in the last two years has changed the concept of referrals and references. Industry based communities and blogs have sprouted everywhere and even some of the corporate giants who at first resisted the idea of communities and blogging are jumping into the fray.

This has taken the notion of "referrals" and "references" to a different orbit. What revolve around buyers today, through social media networking, are the many sources of peer reviews and recommendations that are available. Essentially, this has decreased significantly the need for buyers to rely solely on a sales organization for references.

Sales and the selling profession today must ask itself: "If buyers today can research and configure their own solutions as well as find peer reviews and recommendations, what is the future role of sales in the buying process?" The key to answering this question is to attain a deeper understanding of buyer personas and buying process scenarios. This key opens the door to revealing future insights into how buyers will welcome sales into the buying process. Insights sure to develop the first outline of the role sales can play and in a way that provides the advancement of the selling profession to a new level.

Reasons Why Sales Forces Must Change and What They Must Do

Tony Zambito — 2008-04-07T13:54:38-04:00

When I first found myself in sales, like many of you, I was put through "product training" courses by the dozen. We were tested on the ins and outs of a specific product. Contests were held to see who knew about the product intently and expertly. And merit was based on superior product knowledge. Product managers fed sales forces with detailed descriptions of feature after feature. Creating that compelling feeling that we needed to espouse every feature in detail to our "prospect" because it meant a sale was going to be made.

The buyer was always thought of as the "target" and was a "customer" after the sale. One to be cajoled into "doing business" over the other company. Our presentations, well darn it, was going to beat anybody else's presentation and the buyer was going to be "won" over. Let's face it, if you are still directing a sales force in this manner, you may be asking why you haven't been as successful lately.

Recently, I was advising for one of the largest document management systems in the country. I was struck by how product-centric every phase of their sales and marketing operations truly were. As I inquired, I found little evidence or documentation about who their buyers were. There was no mention of how their systems were of benefit to the customer. Yes, there were the standard lines of reducing costs per page and improving productivity. But, where was the knowledge about how these systems were to help companies to resolve issues, meet goals, solve problems, and address pressing needs?

Without empirical data or evidence to back me up, I do dare say that based on observations, many sales forces continue to operate in the same way. In B2B sales in particular, this may be more prominent than we wish. So herein lays a few reasons why sales forces must change today:

Buyers research more than ever today. The Internet has made most of the information a buyer needs to know available at their finger tips.
Product comparisons are like splitting hairs. The differences between products have become so marginal that if a company is truly product-centric only - well - they are playing in the margins.
Buyers expect you to be not only knowledgeable about products, but knowledgeable about their business, its many functions, and how is it that you will affect their top line revenues and bottom-line profits.
Buyers want to engage in the buying cycle on their own terms. Therefore, companies must be in synch with the buying cycles and processes of the markets they serve.

How should sales forces today respond? What changes do they make? These are just a few:

Sales forces must become persona centric. Meaning that sales forces must have an in-depth understanding of who their buyer personas are and which user personas are being served.
Sales forces must get out of the margins of product comparisons and get into the arena of advising how a company can improve its business operations, branding, and connection with its own customers.
Sales forces must be armed with knowledgeable information that is in synch with the buying cycles of their marketplace. And, this does not mean product information only but market information that can be utilized by the buyer to craft solutions and plans to resolve issues or meet goals.
Sales forces must change their perspective on what "relationships" mean. If relationship means golf and lunch only, then you will be surprised when you lose sales. Relationships today mean the equitable sharing of knowledge.

Sales forces today find themselves at the crossroads of a major transition. Adapting to the changing world of buyers and technology means survival. It will be incumbent upon sales forces today to change from the older mentality of "win/lose" to the equitable sharing and advisory capacity that buyers expect today.

Where is the Future of Selling Headed?

Tony Zambito — 2008-04-02T11:59:01-04:00

I recently read and listened to on Brian Carroll's blog, B2B Lead Generation Blog, an interesting Podcast about the new role of sales as expert content filters. Brian brings up the notion that today's role for sales people has changed due to the advent of the Internet. Therefore, allowing buyers to take control away from marketers and sales professionals. I agree with this and it has made for a complex world indeed. So, where is the future of selling headed? What is the role of sales professionals in the future? Brian offers one view of sales professionals being expert content filters. Without question, the Internet brings up a "Catch 22" situation for buyers today. On one hand, there is voluminous information available to research solutions. On the other hand, it can make the job of evaluating options and solutions quite tedious and time consuming.

Brian talks about how sales professionals can add value to the buying process by not being information providers but information filters who help the buyer to navigate the information overload. This leads to the importance in the future of knowing who your buyers are, how they go about researching and making decisions, and why they do the type of research they do and most importantly - why are they making decisions they are making. Buyer personas will need to be a part of every sales professional's knowledge base in the future. Having deep insight into who your buyers are and how and why they make purchasing decisions will need to be a part of every professional development plan.

How will sales executives, marketing, and sales support play a role in the future? They will have to be the purveyors of knowledge about not only buyer personas, but also of gaining insight into the buying processes of their customers. Creating and understanding buying cycle scenarios will be critical to not only guide the sales processes but to guide the development of sales messaging. The fine art of knowing when to position sales messaging at the various stages of buying cycles can be the difference from a competitive standpoint.

Circling back to Brian's point of sales professionals being expert content filters; messaging and content development will be a requirement for all sales professionals and support functions in the future. Thus, making it essential to create buyer personas and buying cycle scenarios that become part of a company's knowledge base of customer understanding. This actually makes for a very exciting future!

Persona Centric Selling®: The New Science of Selling

Tony Zambito — 2008-03-27T10:22:00-04:00

For many sales executives today, the world of selling in the past ten years has changed at a faster pace than anytime in the 20th century when the sales profession grew in prominence. The advent of technology and the Internet has made selling a buyer-driven adventure versus sales-driven. For instance, buyers today may spend as much as three months researching products or services before ever engaging a sales professional into the buying process. This is the biggest transition facing sales executives and selling professionals today. Literally, many of the standard "sales tools" have been turned upside down on their heads. There are many VP Sales, Director of Sales, and Sales Managers who continue to rely on such selling tactics as "cold calling", "blitzes", "campaigns", and whatever "beat the bushes" tactics are in the 20th century bag of sales tools and tricks. Bewilderment plagues those who increase these intrusive activities as their sales revenues decrease. The formula of "beating the bushes" harder no longer seems to work.

What the heck is going on? The buyer is now capable of tailoring their own buying process to fit the goals and needs of their organization. Meaning that sales cycles that are developed in a vacuum to fit the selling organizations processes but are not in alignment with the buying cycle of the buyer will not be successful in today's new world order of sales and marketing. Just like a car that continues to be pulled to the right when driven, the sales cycle will be out of alignment with buyers. So, what is needed?

What is needed is a new science of sales that focuses on a deep understanding of the buyer, buyer roles, the organizations, and the scenarios in which products or services are used and purchased. This blog will focus on how personas are changing the world of not only product design and marketing, but now that of sales. A persona is an archetypal narrative and representation of a buyer, user, stakeholder, influencer, or technologist. Having a clear and deep understanding of who these personas are , how they interact, how products are used, how they engage in the buying process, and how they make decisions is the pathway to becoming the sales professional and selling organization of the 21st century.

Persona Centric Selling® will be the title of a forthcoming book that offers a new approach to satisfying the goals and motivations of buyers and how personas are being used to develop selling approaches and experiences that are in alignment with the needs of the buyer. A new approach I believe will help sales professionals adapt to the fast changing world of selling.