What buyers want isn’t that complicated… but that doesn’t mean it’s easy

In my last blog, I talked about the “apathy loop” in which buyers across industries and across geographies are marginalizing their relationships with salespeople. While buyers are not demanding that their sellers be replaced by artificial-intelligence fueled bots, they certainly wouldn’t fight to keep them.
Yet there is a place for salespeople now and in the future. Ninety percent of buyers said that they would consider engaging sellers earlier in a sales process. Opportunities for earlier engagement include the context for the purchase, the decision-making style of the buyer and the perception that buyers have of their experiences with sellers.
We asked buyers about the specific behaviors that added value to a relationship and encouraged them to make a purchase. And we asked the converse: What did sellers do that discouraged a sale? What did buyers wish that their salespeople would do differently or more consistently?
Four items rose to the top of