The 49 Yeses: The little sales it takes to close the deal 

The journey from prospect to loyal customer is not matter of making a sale. It is more like 49 sales. Let’s break that down.

• In a business of 100-500 employees, there are typically seven people involved in a buying decision (Gartner).
• There are normally seven broad steps between the first impression on you make on a prospect, and their becoming a loyal customer:
  1. realising they have a problem
  2. researching the solution
  3. researching partners
  4. comparing partners
  5. deciding on the partner
  6. signing with the partner
  7. reviewing the decision

On the basis that you might have to get seven people to take seven steps, you might need to close at least 49 little ‘deals’ to get the final sale over the line.

This article will explain how to maintain the momentum you need to keep prospects engaged, keep the deal moving, and get more sales over the line.

Seven buys for seven buyers: tailoring your marketing to your whole audience

Marketing to one decision-maker is probably effective if you target market is smaller businesses (under 100 employees), but if you are selling to larger businesses, you need to make sure you appeal to all of the people who influence the buying decisions.

Suddenly, the ‘sell’ is more complicated. There is an assortment of concerns, motivations, frustrations, assumptions, expectations, and preferences that sometimes overlap, and are sometimes unrelated. Your campaigns need something for everyone.

There’s no escaping that that’s a hugely demanding task, but there is one big thing you can do to make it less daunting and more successful, and that is to find the personal motivations at play.

Rather than trying to create something that addresses every professional and operational responsibility, and every target KPI that someone might be trying to hit, look past those to the personal goals and motivations that they represent.

Every buyer is a human, who makes decisions emotionally. Show them that what you sell will help them look good professionally and feel better personally, and you will cut through the complicated intellectual reasons to buy or not buy, make them motivated to take action, and improve conversion by up to 50%.

The seven sales: marketing for the whole customer journey

Each decision maker or influencer will feel the problem in a different way. That means when they are researching solutions, they will search differently, which means they will find different solutions, and different partners.

Your task is to make sure that your marketing is answering the different questions that your seven buyers ask, so that you and your content appear as much as possible in their research.

Then, you need to keep the momentum with content that appeals to every stage of the marketing funnel, as prospects narrow down their choice of solution and partner for that solution.

That content needs to be expert and empathetic. That means thought leadership that tells people something that they don’t know, which is impactful in their role, and which offers something for people in the early stages of their customer journey, at the end, or somewhere along the way.

The marketing strategy that gets more results and close more deals

Appealing to all of your buyers at all stages of the customer journey is almost impossible without a joined-up marketing strategy that takes into account:

• the pain points of prospects
• how people research
• how prospects express their problems
• how each element of marketing is interacting with, leading to, or building on another
• the need to align sales and marketing on messaging, on targeting, and on goals

For a deep dive into a structured, practical approach to marketing that delivers real business impact, builds brand authority, engaged decision makers, and converts interest into commercial success, download your copy of ‘Claiming the Spotlight’.

GUIDE | Claiming the Spotlight: Your comprehensive guide to gaining market share

If you have questions, doubts, or concerns about reaching the right people, and guiding them through the buying journey to the close of the deal, or if you simply want to understand how your marketing could get more and better results, please get in touch at jenny.knighting@nutcrackeragency.com.