Is your product bought or sold?

Customers blocked?

Your D2C Buying Motion is Probably Missing a Sales Function.

💵So, what is bought & what is sold?

✅If your customer is good at buying your product, your product is bought. Examples are clothes, small electronics, books. 

❎If your customer buys your product infrequently, your product is sold. Examples are appliances, decor, major electronics. 

Questions to ask?

• Why risk the infrequent buyer's decision confidence to influence the close?
• Do you really look different to the infrequent buyer?
• One rep selling $300 / hour can close almost 600K of sales. Is that valuable to you?
• Are advocates & repeat buyers part of your 'buying' strategy?
• Is learning why they are considering or not considering your product important?

The Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) business model has become increasingly popular for products that are sold, here is why:

• For the sellers: there are higher margins & a  path to finally owning your customer. 
• For buyers: we typically get better service & have access to more product variety. 

😬The problem is that we are using a system built to sell books to sell sofas.

🤑Buyers: As items get more expensive, the decision becomes more complex, as these are more infrequent purchases, as they get bulkier, buyers tend to freeze. They abandon carts 70% - 80% of the time, look to hedge their bet with returns or coupon codes, and in some cases; they buy multiple items. (Yes people buy 3 TV’s with the intention of only keeping one). 

(This creates a bigger problem for inventory management when people return to local stores.  I heard a story of a major retailer where one store in the network had negative sales in January 2023 because of the amount of returns. --I’m saving this discussion for another post). 

🤷🏽♀️Sellers: miss out on customer discovery, bundling, upsells and ensuring the customer has the right fit for their needs. Without the chance to differentiate, the only move is to compete on price, which is a downward spiral. Black Friday is a losers game. 

So: We have a channel mismatch between a buyer that is really bad at buying these items, and a channel that is built to sell books. 

A D2C buying motion is a buying motion where the customers go through when making a purchase.

It usually has 5 stages;

🤔Awareness: of the problem they need to solve

🤨Consideration: of the alternatives (ie: solve it, don't solve it, how to solve it)

🧐Evaluation: build criteria, assess criteria

😬Choose/Buy: select

🥳/🤬Enjoy/Suffer: Set it up, Enjoy the purchase / Suffer through your decision.

In a D2C model, this process typically involves the customer using a website, app, or other online platform to research, compare, and ultimately purchase a product directly from the seller. 

Even if customers buy from a store (so they can be sold), they do 70% - 80% of their ‘work/research’ online in the consideration & evaluation phase. 

A sales function is a team in your company responsible for driving revenue through sales.

This can involve a variety of tasks, including lead generation, prospecting, customer outreach, and closing deals. In a D2C model, the sales function is especially critical, as it is often the primary means of interacting with customers and closing sales after the customer has already done 80% of the research.

You need a sales function for your D2C buying motion if you value:

• Personalization: A sales function allows you to personalize your interactions with customers, tailoring your approach to their specific needs and preferences.
• Discovery: A sales function allows you to learn about your customers at the moment of intent, ie: what is their budget, timeline, what have they considered, constraints & what they like.  Captured correctly, this can be the most valuable part of the sales process. 
• Conversion: A sales function can help increase conversion rates by providing customers with the information and support they need to make a purchase.
• Retention: A sales function can also help retain customers by providing ongoing support, building long-term relationships, and ensuring your customers fit the product & price.
• Markdown Prevention: A sales function can be spiffed to recommend certain products that are moving slowly before they go on markdown. 

Why now? How does it benefit a D2C business?

• Differentiation experience: After spending millions to get the customer to your site; Why risk the infrequent buyer's decision confidence to influence the close?
• Prevent the race to the bottom: If everything looks the same, buyers look to hedge bets with price.
• Increased revenue: A sales function can help drive revenue by closing more deals and increasing customer lifetime value. One rep selling $300 / hour can close almost 600K of sales. Is that valuable to you?
• Improved customer satisfaction: A sales function can provide customers with the support and guidance they need to make informed purchasing decisions, leading to greater satisfaction and loyalty. Are advocates & repeat buyers part of your 'buying' strategy?
• Better market insights: A sales function can also provide valuable insights into customer behaviour and preferences, helping you to optimize your products and marketing strategy. Is learning why they are considering or not considering your product important?

These are all gold in the customer era, right?

Building a strong sales function for your D2C business requires some planning and execution. Here are some key steps to follow:

• Define your sales process: Start by defining your sales process, including the key questions, plans & objectives. 
• Hire the right talent: Hire salespeople who have experience in D2C sales and understand your target audience. You need sales people that work for your company. 
• Provide ongoing training: Provide ongoing training and development opportunities to help your sales team stay up-to-date on best practices and industry trends. Sales is a habit, reinforce, reward, coach.
• Use technology to your advantage: Don’t make it hard. I’ve seen some processes with 30+ steps the customer has to go through to consider a buy. Forget it. Use technology tools such as Visual Sales platforms (IrisCX!) to help make personal connections at scale, remove customer friction, workflow, and use AI to enable your teams and organization to succeed. 

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