CHAPTER 18

Shaping the Buying Vision

Remember that little sports car that you have always coveted? How many times have you pictured yourself sliding behind the wheel, sitting in a handcrafted leather seat that fits you like a glove, with the dials and gauges arrayed around you as in the cockpit of a fighter jet. You slip the car into gear and—with the top down—head for the nearest open road. You’re driving fast down Highway 1 from Carmel to San Luis Obispo, hugging the curves of the California coast, the warm sun on your face and the wind blowing through your hair. Or maybe you want to test the car’s nimble handling, so you envision yourself putting it through its paces as you negotiate hairpin turns on the switchbacks over the 9,045-foot Stelvio Pass in Italy.

All that daydreaming has a purpose. You are envisioning what it will be like to own and operate that sports car. By taking it on mental test drives, you are also working through the financial and value justification you’ll have to present to your spouse about how this is not just a midlife crisis but a solution that meets your transportation needs (“Sweetie, trust me, I’m sure the kids can squeeze in the back…”).

This is known as your “buying vision” or “buyer’s vision.” You’ve created a detailed story in your mind featuring the various benefits, along with the real and psychic value, you would receive from owning and driving that car.

We all create buying visions. Whether we are buying something practical or indulging our midlife crises, we will mentally picture what it will be like to have that purchase in hand. Thinking about where to eat tonight? In your mind, you’re already eating that juicy gourmet burger at the new brewpub in town. Attending a fund-raising gala next week? In your mind, you’re already wearing that designer dress you saw marked down 40 percent this morning.

The same holds true for your customers. At some point in their buying processes, they are going to develop a vision of what it will be like to use a product or service like yours. They are going to picture how your product or service operates. They will develop a mental model of the operational benefits and financial payback your product will generate. They will envision the competitive advantages that will be created by using your product. They will have a vision of the impact your product will have on their employees and internal resources. Not least of all, customers will develop a vision of what the successful use of your product or service will mean for them personally.

This buying vision doesn’t materialize out of thin air. It’s a story of potential and possibilities that is constructed out of the information and insights that you supply to the customer. Like every story, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. In the beginning, the customer has requirements in the form of a problem or pain point that needs to be addressed. In the middle, the customer uses your product to address the pain points. In the end, the customer is successful and reaps the business and personal benefits from the decision to use your product.

The buying vision is very important to you for four reasons. First, creating the buying vision for the customer is a peak event. In a competitive sales situation, if you rise above the others to successfully move the customer to buy into your vision, then you have created a memorable event. And that memory will be reinforced by what the customer does at the following point.

Second, a buying vision gives your customer a tool to become an effective internal advocate for you. Enthusiastically armed with a buying vision, your customer has something tangible in hand—a story to tell in order to sell internal peers and superiors. Obviously, you want this internal advocate to tell the story with your product in the starring role.

Third, shaping the buying vision improves your chances of winning the business. A research study by the Forrester Group found that the seller who was successful in shaping the customer’s buying vision ultimately won the deal an astounding 65 percent of the time!

Fourth, as much as people are reluctant to change their first perceptions of a seller, even when confronted with information that counters that perception (see Chapter 13), trying to change buyers’ vision after they have committed to a particular narrative is also very difficult. It can be done, but the odds are against you. This means that you should position yourself to be the seller who shapes the buyer’s vision.

What are the keys to creating your customer’s buying vision? Let’s look at this in the context of potential peak experiences that you can use to influence the customer.

   Be transparent with your information. Chances are that customers have already begun to form their vision based on their research before you ever communicate with them. Ninety percent of B2B buyers do some form of online research before they engage with a seller. Before their first meaningful discussion with you, based on the information that they were able to glean from your website and other sources, customers will have begun to develop a preliminary sense of how your product would work for their businesses. Therefore, it is critical that the information you present on your website be as comprehensive and clear as you can make it. In other words, stop hiding information and forcing customers to talk with a salesperson before they are ready.

   Be first. Recall all the reasons I’ve given you for being first: responsiveness, first perceptions, satisficers, building the buying vision. You have a significant advantage being first. How many more reasons do you need? Oh, yeah, if you shape the buying vision, you have a 65 percent chance of winning the order. Keep in mind that buying visions don’t have to be comprehensive. But being first is critical! If you hit the major touchstones, then the satisficers—the decision makers who make the good-enough decisions—will have little incentive to keep on looking. They have a story that works for them. They can sell this.

   Question authority. Ask pertinent questions that force customers to rethink the assumptions that are the foundations of their buying visions. Customers may be the authorities on their business, but you need to be the expert on your product and how customers use it to optimize the value and the return they receive from it.

   Provide wisdom. Use your domain expertise to build a position as a trusted source of important insights. Customers gather a lot of content. They get overwhelmed and ask, “Why is this information important to me, and how does it apply to the specific decision that I have to make?” They need your insights to help them fully understand the relevant context for that content. For example, these can come in the form of market research reports or case studies. Your insights will have more value if you look beyond your own set of customers and experiences and search for what other similar companies have done.

   Tell great stories. Well-crafted and well-told sales stories are one of the most effective ways to convey information about why buyers chose your product and how they received value. Sales stories provide an important source of context. A customer in a related industry, with similar business challenges, in the same business climate made the decision to go with your product and your company. Understanding the reasons why that customer chose you provides context for your buyer.

Lastly, what happens if you encounter a prospect that already has formed a buying vision prior to your first engagement? Say the buyer has been working with a competitor and has a model in mind for the solution they need. Is it possible to reopen this prospect’s mind to another possible solution? Yes, absolutely. It isn’t easy. A few points to keep in mind:

   Don’t go negative. Negative selling is not going to work in this situation. If the customer has a buying vision in mind, you are unlikely to create doubt by going negative. It is never a good idea in selling, and it is particularly counterproductive when the customer is already envisioning using the competitor’s product.

   Create doubt. Create doubt in the customer’s mind by offering a competing vision that provides more value. The additional value in your offer has to be tangible and quantifiable. Vague promises are not going to sway the buyer. Give him or her a challenge that her or she really has to stop and think about.

   Run the numbers again. Your competitive buying vision has to provide information that compels the customer to run the business case assumptions and financial justifications again. If you can’t reach this stage, then it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to be taken seriously as a competitor on this deal.