Are Clients Finding It Hard To Buy From You?

Are Clients Finding It Hard To Buy From You?

Many B2B founders don’t understand the game they are really playing and are, therefore, unprepared to win sales. Sales is a game of beating the “NO”. 

Once the game is understood, founders and their teams can be better prepared by being proactive and have different anecdotes to “NO” in their back pockets, ready to use at any time.  

No’s don’t necessarily kill deals, but they do slow things down and cause ‘sales friction’, which isn’t ideal. Sales friction can significantly impact businesses by extending sales cycles, causing lost deals, and reducing revenue and contract lengths. 

This article explores these challenges and offers strategies to overcome them.

Understanding Sales Friction

Whenever a business enters a buying cycle for something, the processes or organisational requirements it needs to go through can be quite time-consuming and complex. This is especially true for products and services with a high price point and many impacting value propositions.

The client’s default is “NO” to stop people from wasting money, which is completely understandable. Without this, businesses might waste money on indiscriminate spending, affecting profits. 

Think about the process a person must go through to buy a house. There is the frustrating process of completing a home loan application and then the government requirements of buying the house. 

This is sales friction.

There will always be some type of sales friction in every sale, but when it’s left unchecked, and the demand for the solution isn’t high enough, the likelihood of a sale is not very high. 

Buyers won’t be willing to go through what is needed to purchase your solution. 

Friction > Demand = No Sale

Common sources of sales friction

In B2B sales, there are many sources of sales friction, and they come from when people are responsible for saying “NO” or showing hesitation. These actions kill deals or add to the sales cycle length, which sellers want to avoid. 

Sales friction can start right at the beginning of the sales process during lead generation and extend to contract signing. Here are some examples.

  • Not responding the lead generation activities
  • Suitability or functionality concerns
  • Incorrect understanding of the problems in their business
  • Not thinking the solution is relevant to their business
  • Difficulty in communication value to management
  • Not how to buy something in their business
  • Difficulty in building a business case for approval
  • Difficulty in navigating their procurement process
  • Comparing other products against each other
  • Navigating legal and IT requirements

As you can see, there are so many potential areas of sales friction associated with a B2B sale, it’s no wonder B2B vendors have the constant challenge of winning sales in their business.

YOUR SOLUTION MIGHT BE JUST TO HARD TO BUY!!!

Demand Neutralises Sales Friction

Several strategies exist to minimise sales friction, and we’ll cover them in a moment, but the main objective a business owner must strive to achieve is to create more demand than friction.

When this occurs, sales are more likely.

Demand > Friction = Sale


Once there is more demand than friction, the “Juice is worth the squeeze” scenario begins presenting itself to the buyer.

Creating Demand in B2B Sales

Creating demand is more simple to achieve when we break it down into 3 categories, and they are:

Interest => Want => Need


INTEREST: Most businesses can create a level of interest in their work to have a discovery call or demo of their solution, but in the complex world of B2B sales, interest is not often enough to overcome the complexities of a B2B buying process. 

The buyer often has difficulty understanding the solution's value and how it relates to their situation. 

This is why sales opportunities usually die after the demo stage because the sales friction they enter is too high.

A seller's aim should be to create an internal champion inside a client organisation so that they want you in their business. 

WANT: This is the next stage of building demand inside a target client and is required so the business will want to explore its current situation and make an informed decision to move forward. 

This might be enough to navigate a single person's decision-making process, but it often isn't enough for more complex sales. 

Want is a personal feeling, and business decisions can’t be relied on to be made based on feelings…So, more is needed to build a consistent pipeline that delivers sales. 

NEED: Need is the strongest form of demand…If a seller can create a strong NEED for change because a potential client’s problems are just too costly or risky to sustain, then they have successfully created enough demand to overcome the friction of the sale.

This is particularly important for new, innovative solutions because the market may be examining the problems according to how your competitors have framed them and not in the context of your unique value proposition. 

How Creating Demand and Sales Friction Are Linked

Creating demand in a target client is about helping remove the barriers to making an informed decision about whether to progress. 

These barriers are friction, and if done correctly, better relationships are formed, expectations are managed, and strong foundations for a successful partnership are laid. 

The inverse of the list above is how you systematically reduce friction and build demand. Let’s take a look;

  • Create a compelling lead-generation strategy
  • Tailor functionality to target the client’s scenario
  • Help client define and articulate the problems in their business
  • Tailor solutions and client case studies to their specific situation
  • Help create compelling communication for management
  • Help them prepare and navigate their buying process
  • Help build a business case for approval
  • Help navigate their procurement process
  • Help compare other possible products against each other
  • Pre Prepare Legal and IT documents

How To Make It Easier For Your Client’s to Buy You

This first step in making it easier for your clients is to simplify the B2B sales process for yourself. If you can’t create a repeatable, effective process, you won’t be able to scale by making it easier for your clients to buy.

For this reason, I’ve written a comprehensive whitepaper on increasing demand, reducing friction, and using a simple framework to help you move clients towards a sale. 

Just a word of warning: it does require a change of perspective to achieve fundamental, meaningful change that can help you grow your business. 

In conclusion, being prepared for the No’s will help you reduce the sales friction that ultimately slows down or stops your potential clients from buying from you. 

By being proactive, sellers can frame the problem uniquely, creating strong demand/need for their solution. 

Good luck!!

Gav

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