Top 3 Powerful Ways to Control the Buyer’s Journey

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If you want to sell, you should control the Buyer’s Journey.

The Buyer’s Journey is the process each buyer navigates in order to make their ultimate buying decision. It closely mirrors the Sales Funnel as we know it. In the Top of the Funnel, the Buyer is Qualifying. In the Middle of the Funnel, they are Considering, and in the Bottom of the Funnel they are Selecting from whom to buy. In order to be the most effective salesperson, shouldn’t you be able to control that journey?

This post focuses on what exactly goes on in each stage of the Buyer’s Journey, what the buyer looks for from the prospect at that time, and how you can control their decision-making processes.

  1.   Top of the Funnel (TOFU) & Qualification

As salespeople, we already know that we qualify customers by examining three qualities:

  1. Do they have a need?
  2. Do they have a budget?
  3. Do they have the authority to make a decision?

But the stage we call Qualification here is different. In this version, the buyer qualifies the seller. The first thing that the buyer looks for is Trust.

How to Earn Trust

In order to gain a prospect’s trust, you need two ingredients, Likeability and Credibility.

  1. To have Likeability means that the prospect sees integrity in you—they think that you have character.
  2. You also need Credibility, which means that you need to be knowledgeable in your field. It’s not enough for the buyer to think you won’t lie to them. They need to know that not only will you never lie, but also that all your information is factual—you know your field.

In order to control the first step of the Buyer’s Journey you should move the prospect farther in the Sales Funnel. Our objective here in the Top of the Funnel, the Qualification Stage, is to establish trust and cultivate rapport (link to Establishing Trust ebook).

Middle of the Funnel (MOFU) & Consideration

After establishing trust, you should move the buyer to the Middle of the Funnel, the Consideration Stage of the Buyer’s Journey. We call this stage Consideration because the buyer is considering whether to move forward with you. The best way to be favorably considered is to create your identity as your prospect’s think-partner rather than just a salesman.

In this stage, because the buyer trusts you, you have earned the privilege of asking questions to the buyer. Questions do far more than just provide data-formed answers. Their main purpose in controlling the Buyer’s Journey is to create Urgency (link to Discovery Questions blog post).

How to Create Urgency 

The Middle of the Funnel is the most difficult stage to navigate. It requires the seller to think from the buyers’ perspective while positioning ourselves as the think partner.

The risk in this stage, however, is not that the buyer will opt out, but that they will grow stale. This is the reason why so many deals go stale: the buyer is interested, but they have more important issues to consider.

Every buyer has a To Do List, and until you move up to the top spot, the buyer will not take action. The key to getting out of the MOFU is learning how to create urgency, or finding out the reason why the buyer should heed your call to action (link to Creating Urgency ebook).

Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU) & Selection

Once the buyer has urgency, you control their move to the Bottom of the Funnel. This stage focuses on selection. When the buyer moves to the bottom of the funnel, they have decided to change their current situation, but they haven’t yet decided on you as the solution. In this stage, the seller focuses on generating preference.  

How to Generate Preference

Congruency and Differentiation are the two emotions that will distinguish your company, your products, and you from your
competitors and ultimately generate
preference.

  1. Congruency means being consistent with beliefs, values, and commitments. When you find out what your buyer has committed to, you can anticipate to what they will commit.
    This molds the process in such a way as to make any transition effortless.
  2.     It’s the Differentiation that makes the valuable option seem valuable. As a seller, you have to know how to set up our offer so that it seems valuable by comparison.

If you have not generated preference (link to Generating Preference eBook) for your company, then you are out of control. You’re selling just as much for your competitors as you are for yourself!

Conclusion 

Controlling the Buyer’s Journey means knowing the Sales Funnel. In order to help the buyer navigate the process, you should know what to do at each stage of the funnel:

  1.   At the TOFU, the Buyer is Qualifying, so you need to Establish Trust.
  2.   At the MOFU, the buyer is Considering whether to make a purchase, so you should Create Urgency.
  3.   At the BOFU, the buyer is Selecting. They have decided to buy, but you have to Generate Preference so that the buyer chooses you.

To be the most effective salesperson, you should know exactly happens in each stage of the Buyer’s Journey and what the buyer looks for from the prospect at that time. That way, you can learn how to control their decision-making processes.

 

Photo by Stocksnap.io .