The next generation of buyers is already here, and they’re much more self-sufficient than their predecessors. What does this self-sufficiency look like? A 2023 survey of tech buyers indicated that the top three resources buyers used for purchase decisions included:
- Product demos (58%)
- User reviews (54%)
- Their own prior experience (51%)
The bottom line: Buyers no longer depend on your sales team to help identify potential solutions or form their initial opinions on products.
This do-it-yourself attitude is a common theme among most modern buyers. We've identified five traits of the modern B2B buyer that are critical to understand for selling in today's competitive online marketplace.
When buyers call, are you ready to engage? Find out more about how you can deliver the ultimate buyer experience with a stunning digital sales room.
5 Traits Of The Modern B2B Buyer
Some of today’s buyers have all of the below traits; others have one or more in combination. It’s helpful to understand how prospects approach a purchase decision so you can tailor your strategy accordingly.
1. Research-oriented
The Research-oriented Buyer conducts thorough research on your company and product primarily using your website, third-party review sites, and other available information on the web. Eighty-one percent of consumers claim to do this, with some of them spending as many as 79 days researching when it comes to high-value or high-cost purchases in particular.
Technology combined with the rise of user reviews has given buyers a wealth of knowledge they could not access in the past. With a simple search and a few clicks, buyers can often learn not only about your product but the experiences other people have had with it. Buyers then become “overnight experts” and make decisions based on the information they found—without ever talking to you.
How can you appeal to Research-oriented Buyers?
While you can’t control what users say about your product online, you can focus on reputation management. To this end, encourage satisfied users to post reviews of your product online, and respond to reviews on third-party review sites with the intent to resolve stated issues. Also, make sure your online content makes it easy for buyers to identify the problems you solve and how you are different from your competitors. If they can’t understand these two things within seconds of looking at your content, they will move on.
2. Empowered
The Empowered Buyer comes to the table already armed with information (and opinions) about your products, services, and pricing, as well as those of your competitors. This high level of knowledge makes them extremely confident. As a result of their preparedness, they are more likely to raise objections and negotiate on pricing.
How can you appeal to Empowered Buyers?
Challenge the assumptions they bring to the table when considering an offer. Are they correct in their assessment of your offerings vs. those of your competitors? Are they making assumptions about your pricing? Are they overlooking certain features? Make sure the content, and the way you provide it, challenges these assumptions and tells your unique story.
3. Urgent
The Urgent Buyer wants to make a decision as soon as possible and is averse to any barrier that delays this process. These days, most answers are only a Google search away, and packages often arrive within a day or two. This level of convenience has made buyers accustomed to getting what they want, in nearly any scenario, quickly. In fact, most respondents in a recent Buyer Behavior Survey indicated that sales reps should respond more quickly to requests.
How can you appeal to Urgent Buyers?
It’s critical that you provide interested buyers with high-quality, relevant information and proposals ASAP. Do whatever it takes to reduce your proposal generation time in-house, and find a software tool that standardizes your content process so you don’t waste time figuring out how to gather and present materials every time.
A digital sales room can be especially useful here. It’s a curated micro-website for each potential buyer—a place where you can quickly publish approved content as buyers have questions and requests. The content is tailored to specific buyer needs and posted immediately. With Talewind, even the most complex proposal documents, contracts, and pitch decks are generated automatically and sent right away.
4. Visual
The Visual Buyer makes decisions that are influenced by what they see from your company—good or bad. A whopping 84% of buyers say the content they were shown had a positive influence on a recent purchase decision. Plus, more than half (59%) of buyers want sellers to provide a better mix of content to help them through the decision-making process.
When a buyer is considering potential vendors, the content you provide—and the way it’s presented—matters. What is the first impression of your company or product? It may be your website or a sales deck from your team. Whatever the case, aesthetics and quality impact the buyer’s assessment of your company.
How can you appeal to Visual Buyers?
Curate your content for buyers thoughtfully and strategically to demonstrate a high level of care. Put it all together into a visually impressive package that makes you stand out from the crowd.
5. Experience-oriented
The Experience-oriented Buyer is heavily influenced by the buying experience and the way they are treated throughout. In fact, 86% of business buyers are more likely to buy when they feel understood by sellers. What does that mean exactly? Here are the top three criteria buyers point to when they finally DO speak with a salesperson:
- 63% want easy access to relevant content that speaks directly to their company (63%).
- 62% want easy access to pricing and competitive information.
- 56% want to see content that speaks directly to and demonstrates expertise around the needs of their industry.
How can you appeal to Experience-oriented Buyers?
Simply sending experience-oriented buyers to your website won’t cut it any longer. By the time they contact you, they already know a good deal about your product or service and how it can meet their needs. What will push them to a sale at this point is giving them a personalized sales pitch. You must show them you understand their industry’s pain points and (if it’s truly the case) that your offering is the perfect match for their needs.
In summary, here are five things every sales team should be doing to appeal to the next generation of buyers:
- Enable entire buyer teams to research everything about your product in one place.
- Give prospects the power to learn about your company when, where, and how it suits them best.
- Speed up your response times when it comes to providing content and proposals.
- Add an attractive visual dimension to your sales pitch to make a great first impression.
- Provide a personalized sales experience that speaks directly to your prospect’s needs and wants.
Satisfy next-generation buyers with Talewind.
Talewind is a revolutionary sales automation platform that will help you deliver exactly what today’s prospects want and need to close a sale. With Talewind you can:
Quickly create stunning digital sales rooms targeted to individual prospects.
Build a one-stop shop for everyone involved in the deal making process. Use Talewind to gather all relevant proposals, decks, contracts, videos, and buyer analytics into a single, co-branded environment for individual buyers to peruse at their leisure. Demonstrate your understanding of what they need and make a strong first impression.
Generate proposals and contracts in a fraction of the time it takes now.
Address buyers’ need for urgency by giving them what they want faster. Talewind’s trademark automation process transforms your existing sales proposals and contracts into dynamic documents, and empowers your sales team to generate them instantaneously for every deal. Forget about days or weeks; with Talewind you can generate these documents in less than an hour.
Take the first step to satisfying today’s buyers—and ultimately closing more sales. Reach out to Talewind today!
