CHAPTER 34

Becoming an Effective Content Curator and Provider

In this internet age, we have seen the rise of the so-called empowered (or enabled or educated) customer. Given ready access to a trove of information online, it would be easy to make the mistake of believing that the importance of a salesperson’s role as a provider of information to the customer had diminished. In fact, the opposite is true. More than ever, salespeople have a critical role to play in helping customers gather the information they need to make fast and low-cost purchase decisions.

Undoubtedly, the role a salesperson plays in the dissemination of information to customers has changed. No longer are they the sole distributors of content about the products and services they sell. Now a company’s website and various social media channels are the key distribution points of the pool of content it has produced about the products and services it markets. The company makes strategic and tactical decisions about how to communicate that content to potential customers, whether by blog, tweet, e-mail, brochure, slide deck, webinar, data sheet, phone call, or other means.

When asked to define “content,” salespeople tend to have a parochial point of view. They believe that content consists of information that their companies developed to supply to their customers.

Unfortunately, that narrow perspective creates a mismatch with the information needs of their prospects. The problem for salespersons is that their customers have a much broader definition of, and requirement for, content. To customers, content is the sum total of the information and insights they need to gather in order to make a fully informed purchase decision in the least time possible.

Marketers have become so prolific in creating content about their offerings that it has created another problem for buyers. Tony O’Driscoll from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University wrote an article in 2013 in which he described how the wealth of content being created and consumed had left buyers asking, “So what? I have all this content. But what does it mean for me? And how can I use it to make better purchase decisions?” Customers have access to a wealth of content. What are they missing? Context.

In their buying cycles, customers are looking to get not only the specifics about particular products and services but also third-party information, insights borne from industry-specific expertise and experience, and research data points that will help illuminate the overall context for the decisions they have to make. For instance, an informed buyer may need to know where the technology is evolving in your product segment, not only for you but also for your competition. She may need to know what her own competitors have done or are doing with products and technology similar to yours. She may need to have an understanding of what technologies will be coming to market in the near future that could impact her company’s position if adopted by a competitor first. This customer is looking to the salesperson to be the conduit for all of her unmet information requirements. The salesperson has to think more universally about the information he needs to supply to help this customer make a decision. In this sense, the salesperson has to be both an effective content provider and an insightful content curator—a trusted source of pertinent information and relevant insights that he personally selected to support the buyer’s decision making.

Research supports the importance of the salesperson as content provider. One study found that salespeople who are effective and responsive content providers dramatically increased their chances of sales success. In a 2010 study by DemandGen and Genius.com titled “Inside the Mind of the B2B Buyer,” 95 percent of B2B customers surveyed said that the seller they chose “provided them with ample content to help them navigate through each stage of the buying process.” On the surface, this may seem self-evident, but let’s dig a little deeper. Remember, first and foremost, that your prospects won’t move from one step of their buying process to the next until their information requirements for the current stage are met. Do a great job in curating and providing information that moves the customer to act, and you’ll be rewarded with orders. How often can your sales actions have such a direct and definitive impact on your sales success?

In the same 2010 study, 80 percent of respondents indicated that “timeliness of providing content” was a key selection criterion in their choice of vendor. In other words, being a responsive seller who provides needed content quickly helps win orders. What’s more, 62 percent of respondents in a survey of B2B buyers said that the “consistent and relevant communications” provided by the seller was key in influencing their decision making about a solution and the solution provider.

Dr. O’Driscoll described how the Internet overloads people with content without providing context. The same holds true for your customers. Buyers are looking to the salesperson to provide some clarity and a way to make sense of the mountains of content they have uncovered. Sellers who can create value for their customers by consistently serving them information that helps them develop a more informed perspective on their upcoming decisions dramatically increase their odds of winning the business.

Lastly, it is essential that you, the salesperson, think like your buyers in order to identify relevant and valuable sources of contextual information. One study found that customers are searching a wider range of information sources to support their decision making:

   48 percent used a wider variety of sources of information (beyond vendor websites).

   59 percent engaged with peers.

   48 percent followed industry conversations online.

   37 percent posted questions on social media looking for advice.

Salespeople have to engage with this same range of information sources on the buyer’s behalf. If you can do this for your customers, the research shows that you will increase your opportunities to win their business.

Here are three simple steps to becoming a more effective content curator and provider:

1. Create an information road map for each sales opportunity. As the salesperson, you need to thoroughly map out the entire set of in-house and curated content that each customer will need to make an informed purchase decision and the decision to purchase your product. As discussed in the previous chapter, as soon as a qualified sales opportunity enters your pipeline, you should have a plan for moving with the customer through the remainder of the buying process. Unless you’re new to your company, you should have the experience and product knowledge to complete this information road map on your own. If not, have a mentor guide you through this process the first time.

The purpose of the road map is to be prepared to answer your customer’s questions in the shortest time possible. You’ve been down the road before with previous deals that you have closed. Use that experience to develop a library of the content that you will need at each step of the customer’s buying process. You’ll then be prepared to anticipate the customer’s questions and be absolutely responsive to them.

2. Identify relevant third-party sources of information. On a deal-by-deal basis, define a list of third-party sources from which you can select relevant content that will deliver value to the customer. If you concentrate your sales efforts on a particular industry or vertical market, then you should already be aware of what these are. If not, do some online research, or ask your customers about the sources of information they use.

Your goal is to make customers smarter, in a global sense, about their problem, their requirements, and the value of the solution that you can provide. Yes, customers can go online and find this information for themselves. But they will be content to outsource this to you—if you can deliver. Envision the credibility and trust you will build with your customers if you do.

3. Aggressively use available tools to find valuable content. It will be up to you to go online and find the information your customers need. Be consistent in your use of available easy-to-use tools to simplify this task. Here are a few quick ideas about finding relevant content that would be valued by your prospect:

   Set up Google Alerts for every qualified prospect. Track multiple keywords associated with your prospect’s company, the primary industry it serves, and its key competitors. Set up an alert for your products/services with the customer’s industry. Check these daily for content that will provide value to the prospect. Don’t hesitate to send e-mails with links to relevant information you uncovered. “Dear Ms. Prospect: I think you’ll be interested in this article I ran across this morning about the ROI companies in your industry can expect to receive from investments in technology like that we have proposed to you.” Do this consistently, and the customer will come to depend on the value that you provide in your communications.

   Subscribe to key blogs in the customer’s market space. Provide links to customers to postings from bloggers in their industry that discuss the problems solved and benefits received from solutions like yours. These articles can provide the customer with insights about pain points and possible solutions from the perspective of industry peers. Make certain that you read everything that you send to the customer. It will make you smarter about your customers and develop your own expertise in their industries.

   Find third-party analyst or academic research on your product category. Even if all you can find online is the abstract from a research report, you can usually learn enough information from that to understand its conclusions. Provide these to your customer—even if the data doesn’t 100 percent support your position. This is a great way to develop trust and credibility by showing that you are not trying to hide any data that would be useful for the customer to know. (You always have to assume that the customer will find this data independently or that your competition will provide it.) If you were working on a big enough deal, it may even be worth buying the report for the customer.

   Search YouTube for videos that address issues such as installation or implementation or that feature concerns the prospect may have for a solution like yours. The more you can find, the more it will help to demonstrate the widespread acceptance of the product you sell.

   Check resources such as SlideShare for presentations that are relevant to the customer’s upcoming decision. SlideShare is an incredible source of relevant presentations, industry data, and research studies.

   Search online for industry conferences, and look for presentations that are relevant to the prospect’s buying cycle. Find a link to the conference proceedings. Or e-mail the presenters and ask for a copy of the slides. This practice will again demonstrate your engagement in the customer’s buying process and your determination to help the customer make the most informed decision possible.

Being an effective content curator and provider requires an investment of time and thought on the part of the salesperson. But this investment is usually the difference between a successful salesperson and one who is always playing catch-up on quota.