B2B Sales Success Through AI-Driven Outreach

Over 78% of B2B purchase decisions involve multiple decision-makers. 

A typical Buying Committee consists of up to 11 decision-makers, with each gathering independent information. 

A Buying Committee shares their research and ensures everyone’s insights are heard, leading to a unified choice. 

Marketers cannot afford to overlook Buying Committees as their complexity and significance make B2B sales lengthy to close. 

Why Unifying Buying Committee Decisions is Tough 

A staggering 77% of buyers experiencing ‘high purchase difficulty’ due to the perceived overwhelming nature of the sales process. 

Decision-making is challenging because: 

1. Evolution of software solutions: The increasing complexity of software solutions necessitates input from numerous individuals and departments. 
2. Remote work dynamics: The rise of remote work has facilitated the inclusion of more voices in decision-making and expanded the range of perspectives. 
3. Risk aversion: Faced with heightened scrutiny on expenditures and budgetary pressures, buyers are including more stakeholders in the process to mitigate the risk of making incorrect choices. 

These factors increase dysfunction. 

Picture this – Buyers spend a significant 15% of their time de-conflicting information among decision makers. 

This dysfunction has reached a point where almost half of B2B buyers refrain from advocating for a solution they wish to purchase. 

Often, purchase cycles are lengthy, the top of the sales funnel narrows, and promising leads either delay or avoid entering the buying journey. 

Understand the Diversity of Stakeholder Dynamics 

In today’s landscape, Buying Committees span across various departments, further categorized into: 

• Final approvers: Although the smallest in number, they wield significant influence, making them a primary focus for marketers. 
• Core Buying Committee members: They drive research, solicit feedback, and recommend vendors. Though rated as influential by 70% of the surveyed buyers, they often remain under-engaged, as marketers target the final approvers. 
• Other influencers: These individuals provide input on products as the end users. Representing the majority of stakeholders, they exert the most impact during the awareness and consideration stages. 

Marketers must establish connections with the complete spectrum of stakeholders to maximize brand awareness and increase the likelihood of securing deals. 

How to Unify the Buying Committee 

Buying Committees are designed to ensure every solution that their organization brings into its fold is necessary, solves a problem, compliant, serves the right department/employees, and provides high RoI.

1. Understand Each Stakeholder’s Needs

Members of Buying Committees typically pursue three categories of value: 

• Company value: Ensuring adherence to industry standards, guaranteeing reliability, and acquiring essential features. 
• Work value: Seeking ways to simplify tasks, save time, and enhance overall productivity. 
• Personal value: Striving for a sense of pride in one’s work, earning the respect of peers, and advancing one’s career. 

Sales teams must document these needs from a diverse range of stakeholders. Initial messaging that emphasizes personal benefits is more likely to spur action. 

Draup for Sales’ Buyer Intelligence solution hyper-targets your prospects to analyze their interest in your offer. It delves into personal traits of stakeholders, their deal size influence, and more. 

When you grasp the subtler aspects of a buyer’s preferences and characteristics, you gain a holistic understanding of the individual and can tailor your approach accordingly.

2. Establish a United Front

Convincing a large group involves securing a ‘yes’ from each stakeholder based on the value it holds for them individually. However, the goal is to attain a collective ‘yes’ by fostering shared value. 

1. Identify key stakeholders: Pinpoint the individuals crucial to the decision-making process. 
2. Conduct consensus-building workshops: Design workshops aimed at creating consensus, thereby reducing the likelihood of buyers defaulting to the lowest common denominator. 
3. Discover points of agreement and disconnect: Pay careful attention to decision-makers who may share business objectives but possess differing personal priorities. 
4. Connect with mobilizers individually: Influence the buying committee by aligning with a advocate who holds credibility among their colleagues. 

Draup for Sales’ Buyer Intelligence solution contributes to building relationships. It analyzes data and enables you to hyper-personalize content and deliver presentations tailored to individual needs.

3. Activate Your Mobilizers

Mobilizers pose challenging questions and often serve as educators within their organizations. 

The key to activating mobilizers lie in understanding the type of business case they employ and then tailoring your messaging accordingly. The four most prevalent business cases include: 

1. Compare costs across alternatives. 
2. Assessing the total cost of ownership. 
3. The timeline and RoI size. 
4. No clear business case. 

In subsequent communications, provide mobilizers with content and tools to bolster their business case and facilitate connections with diverse stakeholders. The engagement gets more effective with more quality content you provide for independent research. 

Draup for Sales’ platform helps you build hyper-target prospect list and enable you to segment prospects through real-time metrics. Its 360-degree view is built on machine learning models with a team of analysis validating its data integrity internally. 

You can create your desired persona based on different attributes including location, level, traits, job titles, and more to internalize the ideal customer profile.