In 2019 I Predicted "Buyer Enablement" to be the future of sales and we're seeing that begin to play out already in 2023. But what does Buyer Enablement actually mean?

Buyer Enablement is a GTM approach whereby the buyer experience is at the forefront of your priority list. This means your process and product are both designed around what the buyer wants (from start to finish).

Today, this means crafting a buying process for the millennial (or modern) decision maker. When surveyed, 77% of B2B buyers say their latest buying experience was complex or difficult. This creates big opportunity for sales orgs to evolve and modernize.

The key difference with millennial (or modern) decision makers is very simple: we prefer "Asynchronous Communication"

That means we want to access our own information, get easy help along the way, and make a purchase with little-to-no need for scheduled calls or live meetings.

However, most sales orgs are still running legacy motions that require buyers to schedule demos, wait, sit through boring meetings to extract the 20% of the information they needed, and then deal with old fashioned negotiations, contract drafting, etc. These things make a modern buyers lose their minds pretty quickly-- it's just too tedious. 

The B2B SaaS industry will quickly become a race to the best buyer experience because while that prospect waits for your AE to receive and reply to the demo request (or for the demo date/time to finally come), they'll be done purchasing from your competitor who streamlined and automated every step in their journey.

This means designing products is no longer about serving customers, it's also about serving buyers, shoppers, prospects, etc. 

To simplify:

The Modern Buyer Wants To:

→ Gather their own information
→ Move at their own pace
→ Access help as needed along the way
→ Complete a purchase with little-to-no meetings

This does not mean offer a free trial + self sign-up and call it a day. This means identifying all areas your current buying process requires live interactions and creating alternate ways for buyers to navigate through them on their own.

Make it easy for buyers to access what they need when they need it. Buyers are smart, they can look through content and find what they need, just make it as easy as possible, engaging as possible, and consider putting your best foot forward (your money bags) into the content production instead of hiring another hundred salespeople. 

Think about what the buyer needs, wants, and prefers.

Happy Selling,