Drive Bold Purchase Decisions with Headway Selling

Today’s buying environment is one of rising costs and shrinking opportunities: B2B organizations have seen their sales and marketing costs rise by a staggering 68% while commercial productivity seems to be stagnant at best. It is clear that growth leaders need to take a different approach to value creation in 2024 and beyond if they are seeking to achieve higher growth targets.

Despite the challenging buying environment, we still see market leaders who consistently achieve their targets, closing increasingly lucrative deals when others are struggling to achieve consensus. To understand how they remain competitive, we set out an objective for our research—to discover how top suppliers generate bold purchase decisions in the buying journey.

Through a comprehensive analysis of 643 purchase decisions made across a wide range of types, industries, and touchpoints, we identified two drivers of bold purchase decisions—the offering and the go-to-market (GTM) experience. This article details the importance of these decision drivers and discover how you maintain buyer commitment throughout the customer lifecycle.

Buyers Value the GTM Experience Over Product Offerings

In our discussions with buying groups and key decision-makers, there is one strength that most organizations have in common: their offerings are strong enough to drive bold purchase decisions. Buyers particularly value offerings that are tailored to their unique needs. Whether it is through selling unique product features, flexible pricing schemes, or a trustworthy brand, a strong offering provides confidence that the supplier will deliver value against their current needs.

However, the product is only half the story, and most sales organizations struggle to deliver a differentiated GTM experience that drives buying decisions to be made. Our findings revealed several clear gaps between these two factors:

• 58% of suppliers’ offerings are strong enough to drive bold purchase decisions
• Yet, a majority (59%) of buyers consider the GTM experience as the critical factor in their decision-making process
• But only 24% of suppliers were successful in curating GTM experiences that delivered on buyers’ needs

The trouble with solely relying on strong product offerings is that the prevailing buying experience loses differentiation over time. As buyers go through different stages of the buying journey, many elements that initially look enticing can start to feel similar across different suppliers. After all, most supplier insights are high-quality and data-backed; what makes your offering truly unique among your competitors?

This line of questioning repeats itself throughout selling stages, constantly eroding the commitment of the buyer and ultimately bringing deals to a standstill. The threat to commercial productivity is clear: if businesses are to succeed in bringing back more wins, they need to differentiate themselves better from the competition.

Driving Bold Purchase Decisions with Headway Selling

In conversations with leading executive GTM teams, we discovered that market leaders often look beyond ways to deliver immediate value now; their biggest wins come from helping their buyers succeed in their goals. More specifically, these sellers build the GTM experience around the buyer, helping them to establish continuous headway toward their future goals.

This technique—we termed “headway selling”— provides the buyer with a renewed sense of confidence in the supplier by demonstrating that the seller:

1. Advances the customer's evolution

By putting the needs of the buyer first and foremost, suppliers create opportunities to demonstrate how their offerings can adapt to any expected changes in the buyer’s needs. A seller that understands what the buyer is trying to accomplish can feel like a part of the buyer team, helping to build up trust and commitment to the deal.

2. Anticipates roadblocks in the buying process

Buyers are faced with increasingly complex processes and criteria for consensus. To minimize slowdowns and mitigate backtracking, prudent commercial teams will be there to guide buyers through decision landmines with insights that further reinforce their needs. Often, the best commercial teams would have preempted any potential changes in the buyer’s business reality, prescribing buyers with steps that make the buying process easier in their new scenario.

3. Align the team to the customer’s direction

One of the largest sources of buying friction originates from the transition between commercial touchpoints. Instead of forcing the buyers to explain their situation repeatedly to different reps, commercial teams who practice headway selling ensure that everyone involved in the buying journey is aligned on the goals and current motions of the team. To the buyer, it seems as if the commercial team is working alongside the decision-makers to help them achieve their goals, building up confidence in the supplier’s abilities to deliver.

By adopting headway selling methods, market leaders consistently boast higher win rates and bold purchase likelihood, helping them grow and generate revenue at an unparalleled pace. Discover how headway selling can start your organization on the path of renewed growth and higher commercial productivity by reading our latest report here: Unlock Profitable Growth with Improved Commercial Efficiency.