The IMPACT Buying Cycle and Messaging Value
Selling to Customers how They Want to Buy - According to Risk
The IMPACT Cycle is the universal process of how B2B customers buy, governed by product maturity and risk tolerance. Understanding where and how to engage customers in the IMPACT cycle can help marketing and sales organizations lower the cost of customer acquisition. "Challenger Sale" approaches will be most effective when a sponsor in the buying organization is engaged at the Mentor phase.The IMPACT Buying Cycle
Moving from Vendor to Trusted Advisor
Generally, the earlier the customer is engaged in the IMPACT buying cycle the greater the potential for the vendor to influence the outcome of the sale.The Dell salesperson (value offered) is engaged when the buyer is ready to make a transaction. The Salesforce.com sales exec. (value-added) is engaged when the customer has assessed their needs and decides they are ready to look at CRM vendors.
The Value-Created sales person, e.g. selling a novel technology product in a new market, or an incumbent major account sales professional, or a consultant selling services, typically engages at the Mentor phase when the customer has no understanding of needs, only a sense of direction and a desire for insight on risk.
Value Created Engagement Model
The two main challenges to the Value-Created engagement are:- Grabbing the attention of the relevant customer personnel in the first place....and this means getting found on the Internet during the initial research in the Mentor phase
- Managing the selling team and the customer to retain control through the IMPACT process.
