Buyers care more about the experience they have with a company than they do about product or price. Here's how sales organizations can deliver a great buying experience.

1. 10 Ways Sales Can
Deliver a Great Buying
Experience
Scott Albro
October, 2013
blog.topohq.com
@scottalbro
TOPO© 2013 TOPO

2. TOPO helps marketing and
sales design and deliver
great buying experiences
learn more at: blog.topohq.com
© 2013 TOPO

3. The buying experience is a new way
of thinking about sales and marketing
What is it?
How people perceive the experience of
buying a product or service in your market
1. It’s the entire journey that the buyer has as they move from
status quo to purchase
2. It’s the entire experience
(emotions, objectives/wants, interactions, information…) that the
buyer has during that journey
3. Your objective is to deliver experiences that exceed the buyer’s
expectations so that they buy your product or service
note: all of this is really different than buyer personas
© 2013 TOPO

4. Great buying experiences have a
huge impact on revenue growth
Companies that provide great buying experiences see:
• More traffic/leads
• Higher conversion rates
• Larger average deal sizes
• Shorter sales cycles
• Lower customer churn
• More referrals
>2X
And grow >2X faster than
companies that provide
average experiences
© 2013 TOPO

5. That’s because the best salespeple
give buyers what they want
Buyer
Preference
Buyer Behavior Example Best Practice
Simplicity Buyers are 86% more likely to buy
during simple experience
Turn home page into a really simple
landing page
Relevance 64% of buyers cite understanding
customer as most important
Offers/use cases that are built for
specific buyer personas
Information 95% of buyers prefer brands that
provide content thru process
Content that informs critical decisions
buyer must make
Low risk Reduced financial risk cited as top 3
priority by 54% of buyers
Free trial that is easy to sign up for
and use
Control 70% of experience completed prior to
interacting with vendor
Email only registration with backend
data append
Plus hundreds of more preferences, behaviors, and best/worst practices…
© 2013 TOPO

6. 10 ways sales can deliver a great
buying experience
© 2013 TOPO
1. Understand the importance of BX
2. Truly understand the buyer
3. Map the buying experience
4. Layer insights/data onto BX map
5. Design the complete buying experience
6. Design buyer-responsive plays
7. Implement buyer-responsive plays
8. Train salespeople on buyer and plays
9. Measure buyer satisfaction
10. Optimize the buying experience

7. 1. Understand the importance of BX
© 2013 TOPO
To the buyer, the buying
experience is more important
than product or price
That’s why sales organizations that
deliver great buying buying experiences
grow 2X as fast as those that don’t

8. 2. Truly understand the buyer
© 2013 TOPO
Buyer Demographics
1. Who are you personally (married, children, etc)?
2. What’s your background and career path?
3. How long have you been at your current job?
4. What industry is your company in?
5. How many employees does your company have?
Buyer Role
6. What is your role in the organization?
7. What is your title?
8. What are your responsibilities?
9. What skills do you possess?
10. Who are you accountable to?
11. What does your team look like?
Buyer Psychology
12. What are you most excited about at work?
13. What are your main opportunities (biggest)?
14. What are your main challenges (biggest)?
15. Do you like to make things happen?
16. What motivates you to make something happen?
17. What defines success in your role?
18. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about work?
Day in the Life
19. What does a typical day look like?
20. How would you describe your work environment?
21. What obstacles do you commonly encounter?
22. Who do you interact with the most?
23. What’s your preferred mode of communication?
24. What tools do you use at work?
25. How do you gather information to make decisions?
Purchasing Decisions
26. How would you describe the way you buy products?
27. What are the major phases of a purchasing process?
28. What’s an example of a purchase you recently made?
29. Who is responsible for purchasing decisions?
30. Who influences purchasing decisions?
31. What causes you to begin a purchasing process?
32. What criteria do you use to evaluate products?
33. What causes you to purchase a product?
34. What causes you to purchase one product over another?
35. Is product, price, or service more important?
36. How long does it take to make a purchase?
37. What information is valuable to you during a purchase?
38. How do you prefer to consume that information?
39. How do you prefer to interact with vendors?
40. How can vendors help you the most?

9. 3. Map the buying experience
Buyer
Stage
Buyer
Activity
Status Quo
Understand
Requirements/
Options
Engage Vendor(s)
Identify
Problem/Opportu
nity
Make
Decision/Purchase
Key
Question
How do I keep my
customers happy
when I’m growing?
What do I do now
that I have two
people in support?
How do I make
this really easy on
my business?
Does it satisfy my
core requirements
and is it easy?
Can I show CEO that
the software and
price just work?
1personsupportorg
UsingGmail/GoogleDocs
Workloadgrowingfast
Numberofticketsgrowing
2peoplenowworkingsupport
Newemployeenotself-sufficient
Twopersonworkflowisissue
Newemployeeneedstosolve
CollectsbasicinfousingGoogle
Talkstopeers–valuesthis
Corefeaturesidentified
Gatherspricingdata
Focusesoneaseofuse
Developsvendorshortlist
Createsvendorevaluationplan
Visitsleadingvendor’ssite
Signsupfortrial
Justneedsittowork
Startsusingtrial
Noothertrials
Takescall/emailfromsales
Abletosatisfycoreusecase
Takes2ndcallfromsales
Internalmeetingonfinaldecision
Buyerdecidestopurchase
Enterscreditcardinfo
Buyerbecomescustomer
Next Step
Requirement
Potential
Roadblock
Workload requires
more than 1 person
to support process
Complexity high
enough to require
real application
Understands core
use cases and
leading vendors
Actual use of
trial, as opposed
to just signup
CEO must approve
decision and provide
credit card
Business not
growing enough to
justify next step
Buyer doesn’t
realize general
benefits of SaaS
Can’t understand
basic need and
requirements
Able to signup for
trial, but too
challenging to use
CEO vetoes decision
at last minute because
of TCO issue
1 27
© 2013 TOPO

10. 4. Layer data/insights onto the map
Buyer
Stage
Status Quo
Understand
Requirements/
Options
Engage Vendor(s)
Identify
Problem/Opportu
nity
Make
Decision/Purchase
1
5
10
2
10
Vendorwebsite
7
5
4
6
9
3
Freetrial
Salesinteraction
Onlinepurchase
5
8
9
6
3
8
Basicresearch
Features/pricing
Vendorshortlist
3
10
Understandissue
4
9
Managestatusquo
Importancetobuyer
Satisfactionofbuyer
Buyer Data/
Verbatims
Only 40% of buyers
satisfied with top of
funnel info available
Critical that buyers
understand issue
quickly
Buyers rate peers
as preferred source
of information
70% of buyers say
sales people didn’t
know basic facts
95% of buyers satisfied
with credit card
purchase experience
“Very little info on
managing support
for my business”
“I had tough time
understanding
workflow issue”
“Talking to
colleague at similar
business was most
valuable”
“Easy to signup for
trial, but really hard
to actually use”
“Expected purchasing
experience to be easy
and it was”
© 2013 TOPO

11. 5. Design the sales organization
© 2013 TOPO
Example Buyer Data Design Principle
Sales process Buyer will not have authority until
90% of sales process is complete
Make budget a nice-to-have in SQL
definition
Organization Buyer values vertical-specific context
above all else
Hire swat team from industry to act as
subject matter experts
Plays Buyer doesn’t answer phone or
respond to voicemail
Use voicemail as a prompt to reply to
email
Metrics Buyer must meet with stakeholders
before moving to next step
Track % of opportunities where
internal stakeholder meeting occurs
Technology Buyer wants simple, transparent
pricing
Publish pricing on website, not via a
complex pricing configurator

12. 6. Design buyer-responsive plays
Buyer
Stage
Buyer
Activity
Status Quo
Understand
Requirements/
Options
Engage Vendor(s)
Identify
Problem/Opportu
nity
Make
Decision/Purchase
1personsupportorg
UsingGmail/GoogleDocs
Workloadgrowingfast
Numberofticketsgrowing
2peoplenowworkingsupport
Newemployeenotself-sufficient
Twopersonworkflowisissue
Newemployeeneedstosolve
CollectsbasicinfousingGoogle
Talkstopeers–valuesthis
Corefeaturesidentified
Gatherspricingdata
Focusesoneaseofuse
Developsvendorshortlist
Createsvendorevaluationplan
Visitsleadingvendor’ssite
Signsupfortrial
Justneedsittowork
Startsusingtrial
Noothertrials
Takescall/emailfromsales
Abletosatisfycoreusecase
Takes2ndcallfromsales
Buyerdecidestopurchase
Enterscreditcardinfo
Buyerbecomescustomer
Play Provide primary contact with champion content that allows contact to
guide, influence, and dictate internal meeting
1 27
Internalmeetingon
finaldecision
Details Champion content is a toolkit that provides buyers with short preso, talking
points, and due diligence checklist to show all work that’s been done as
part of eval
Why CEO will make final decision, but has not been engaged thus far – need to
arm primary contact with tools to get CEO over finish line
Owner Marketing owns creation of content; inside sales owns delivery/training
Champion
Content Play
© 2013 TOPO

13. 7. Implement buyer-responsive plays
© 2013 TOPO
Activity Points Notes Source
Email Open 1 Points will only be assessed on the first open per email Email campaigns such as newsletters and nurture
campaign #1
Page View 3 Each page viewed in a visitor session. Page views scoring will be
reset every 30 days
Email campaigns and PARC website
Visitor 1 Points will be assessed each time Pardot adds a new cookie to this
prospect. The number of visitors will be the number of times
Pardot has cookied the prospect’s browser(s).
Inbound traffic (visitor is not tracked in database
yet)
Webinar Attended 5 Points will be assessed for each webinar attended Webinar registration
Webinar Registered 10 Points will be assessed for each webinar the prospect registers for Email campaigns and client website
Form Submission 10 Points will be assessed once per successful form submission Email campaigns and client website
View Video 2 Points will be assessed for each video attended Email campaigns and client website
Contact Us Submission 10 Points will be assessed for every Contact Us form submission Client website
Newsletter Submission 2 Points will be assessed for every newsletter submission. Points will
be assessed once no matter how many newsletter prospect
subscribes to
Client website
Job Title 7 Points will be assessed if prospect has phrases in title: Research,
Product, General Manager, CEO, President
"Contact Us" form or data append from services
such as Demandbase or Reachforce
Industry 7 Points will be assessed if prospect is from target industries. For
example: technology, consumer packaged goods, electronics,
manufacturing
Data append from services such as Demandbase or
Reachforce
Target List 7 Points will be assessed if prospect is from a target list Account Target list provided by client
Company Size 5 Points will be assessed if prospect account is over $500MM in
revenue
Data append from services such as Demandbase or
Reachforce

14. 8. Train sales on the buyer and plays
Wednesday Buying Experience Training
8:00 to 9:00 Sales team working, making calls
9:00 to 9:30 Introduction to the buying experience
9:30 to 10:30 Deep dive on the buyer – key steps, priorities, information…
10:30 to 11:00 In the buyer’s shoes (exercise)
11:00 to 12:00 Delivering a great experience via 4 buyer-responsive plays
12:00 to 1:00 Break, Craig and Scott available to answer questions
1:00 to 2:00 Post demo follow up play/exercise 1
2:00 to 3:00 Content selling play/exercise 2
3:00 to 4:00 Stalled demo play/exercise 3
4:00 to 5:30 The dark period multi-touch play/exercise 4
5:30 to 6:00 Questions, deep dives, feedback survey, wrap up
6:00 to ??? Team dinner with Craig and Scott
© 2013 TOPO

15. 9. Measure buyer satisfaction
Buyer
Stage
Status Quo
Understand
Requirements/
Options
Engage Vendor(s)
Identify
Problem/Opportu
nity
Make
Decision/Purchase
1
5
10
2
10
Vendorwebsite
7
5
4
6
9
3
Freetrial
Salesinteraction
Onlinepurchase
5
8
9
6
3
8
Basicresearch
Features/pricing
Vendorshortlist
3
10
Understandissue
4
9
Managestatusquo
Importancetobuyer
Satisfactionofbuyer
© 2013 TOPO

16. 10. Optimize the buying experience
Job #1
Deliver a buying experience that exceeds the
buyer’s expectations
© 2013 TOPO
14%
28%
34%
22%
10%
25%
40%
25%
5% 7%
39%
49%
Poor Good Very Good Excellent
Sales rep score
Q2
Q3
Q4
0%
19%
49%
30%
5% 7%
39%
49%
Poor Good Very Good Excellent
Client vs. Competition
Competition
MicrosoftClient

17. 10 ways sales can deliver a great
buying experience
© 2013 TOPO
1. Understand the importance of BX
2. Truly understand the buyer
3. Map the buying experience
4. Layer insights/data onto BX map
5. Design the complete buying experience
6. Design buyer-responsive plays
7. Implement buyer-responsive plays
8. Train salespeople on buyer and plays
9. Measure buyer satisfaction
10. Optimize the buying experience

18. Questions?
TOPO
© 2013 TOPO
blog.topohq.com
@scottalbro
We design and deliver remarkable buying experiences