Through the Eyes of the Buyer

The Competitive Landscape is getting … more competitive. With many companies missing targets in H1-2024, the market is flooding our Buyers with blogs, videos, emails, calls, webinars and more.

But there are actually two other "competitors" that are the most pernicious. They are rarely mentioned by our Buyer, but are always "in the room."

FOFU

For those trying to decode the mentality of today's B2B Buyer, we highly recommend the book, "The JOLT Effect."

The authors reference a study by Nobel Prize-winning Psychologists and Economists that exposes a fundamental truth in today's B2B environment.

(W)e place more weight on loss that is the result of doing something wrong (what re known as "errors of commission") than we do on loss that is a result of failing to do something right (known as "errors of omission"). This phenomenon is called omission bias.

The cool kids are now calling this FOFU for "Fear of F'ng Up."

The research cited in the book was done in the late 1970s, so FOFU has always been a thing, but the interconnected nature of the modern business system makes this "competitor" even more pervasive.

In an era when teams are lean, budgets are tight, projects require coordination from multiple departments and results are therefore harder than ever to achieve, the fear of doing anything and being wrong is perceived as far riskier than doing nothing (status quo).

The thing is, our GTM efforts do little to assuage these concerns. In fact, in many cases, we actually amplify these concerns, because we spend all of our efforts highlighting the significant gap between the status quo and the "promised land" available with our solution.

Can A.I. Do That?

The other "competitor" lurking in the shadows is Creative Alternatives. This, again, is nothing new, but in the AI era is much more pervasive.

In our experience, nearly every Board is asking their CEO's …

"Before we hire any more people or commit to any new software, can we explore how we might be able to use AI to solve this constraint?"

Notice how this statement is "explore." It is not a mandate, but to the troops in the trenches, this is yet another contributor to heightened concerns over "errors of commission."

While there is still way more hype in AI than tangible results, there are enough glimmers of hope that savvy companies are exploring these alternatives.

If nothing else, the existence of these potential solutions is causing companies to reevaluate the situation to validate that they have framed the problem appropriately.

<insert brain graphic>

The Buyer's Sherpa

As we dive head first into H2-2024 and stare down the planning cycle for 2025, our GTM teams would be well served to take a momentary pause and evaluate how our engine serves to build confidence for our Buyer (if at all).

A great place to start is with the initial discovery call. Are we exploring the always present, but rarely discussed "elephant in the room?"

Our goal is to not only assess "fit" of the organization with our product, but their level of confidence in making a decision.

Here's a simple example:

Suppose we have two opportunities that look exactly the same on paper.

• Same size company

• Same industry

• Same geography

• Same growth

• Same budget

• All the usual "fit" stuff is identical

In one of the situations, our Champion has used, and better yet directly implemented, a solution similar to ours at a previous company.

In the other situation, our Champion has never used or implemented our solution or any other. Ever.

What do we believe is the degree of confidence the first Champion has in making a decision? What about the second Champion?

And yet, our process will likely treat both opportunities exactly the same.

This isn't only a problem for Sales. In fact, given current preferences of the typical B2B buyer, this requires thoughtful, integrated solutions from Marketing.

In fact, this orientation towards Buyer Confidence will have a significant impact on the entire GTM engine, including onboarding and success, as it forces us to identify the root causes of potential risk, which can often be outside our product!

Getting to Insight

The key contributors to successfully building Buyer Confidence are insights and content based on these insights. This is no easy feat for lean teams in the lower middle market.

This is why we are excited to host a series on the gtmPRO Podcast in the month of August re: "Strategic Content." We have several incredible experts lined up to help demystify building out this capability.

Stay tuned and see you next week!