A better way of doing business: the fundamentals

Buyers today have all the power

The buyer is more empowered, can easily share his or her experience and has more information about your product, the industry and competitors. So what happens if you don't meet their needs?

• 94% of consumers have discontinued communications with a company because of irrelevant promotions or messages.
• 74% of people are likely to switch brands if they find the purchasing process too difficult.
• 51% of customers will never do business with that company again after one negative experience.
• 93% of consumers said they are more likely to be repeat customers at companies with remarkable service.
• 77% of consumers shared positive experiences with their friends or on social media and review sites.

There’s a better way to do business

Make sure your customers want to buy from you instead of you trying to sell it to them. This way you can automate a large part of the process and focus on helping your customers in the best possible way.

Our philosophy is based on helping people. It is a better way to market, a better way to sell and a better way to help your customers. Because if what's good for your customers is also good for your business, your business will grow better in the long run.

Consumers' buying behaviour continues to change and evolve. You want to create an experience that makes your prospects feel valued. You need to adapt to the way buyers think, research and buy.

How does this work exactly?

There are three main phases that everyone, involved in marketing, sales and service, uses to create and maintain relationships with people. These phases are:

• Attract, attracting customers.
• Engage, getting the customer to take action.
• Delight, always surprising the customer in a positive way.

All these phases apply to everyone in your company. Attracting customers is not only the role of marketers. Letting customers take action is not only the role of sales. Creating the positive experience is not only the role of service employees.

In order to build lasting relationships and retain customers, every team dealing with customers needs to attract customers, help them take action, help them have a positive experience. This creates trust, both inside and outside your company.

The three stages explained

The first phase: attract

• For a marketer this means: creating relevant content and experiences that demonstrate your knowledge and understanding.
• For a salesperson: making yourself available for meetings, conversations or live interaction.
• For a service employee: making it as easy as possible to use knowledge documents, chatbots and other ways to find information.

Every company is an expert and every employee must be able to distribute the right knowledge. Attracting people is done by using the available expertise and by creating content and conversations that help people overcome their obstacles and reach their goals.

The second phase: engage

The engage phase starts at the moment that a person takes the desired action. In this phase you start collecting information about the individual you are working with. It does not matter how they deal with you, your focus is on building trust. Answer questions, provide solutions and give insight.

You become an important resource by focusing on what motivates your audience and using your expertise to solve their needs. The way you build trust with your contacts depends on the objectives of your company.

The third phase: delight

In the delight phase it is all about offering an excellent experience. Your goal is to set up a system to help surprise your prospects or customers so that they are so satisfied that they will promote your company on their own. Make it as easy as possible for them to find the answers and information they need.

Make sure you understand what motivates your prospects and customers. Look for opportunities to provide additional insight or information. A prospect is a potential customer. A customer is only truly a customer when he has had the opportunity to leave you and has chosen not to.

The fundamentals of this new way of doing business

You really have to live this new way of doing business. You can't just use it as a tool. We promise: carry it out, try it out and it won't disappoint you.

Basic principles

The guidelines for every interaction your team has with prospects or customers.

• Standardize for Consistency
• Contextualize for Relevance
• Optimize for Clarity
• Personalize for Impact
• Empathize for Perspective

Company purpose

The Harvard Business Review states: “To inspire your staff to do good work for you, find a way to express the organization’s impact on the lives of customers, clients, students, patients — whomever you’re trying to serve. Make them feel it.”

This is your company’s purpose.

Business goals

What comes to mind when you hear the word 'goal'? Maybe you think of a destination. Maybe you think about the journey to it. Think about the teams and people within your organization: their tasks and their path to get there.

Make sure everyone works towards the same goal and you avoid a lot of frustration and wasted energy. With a pre-defined and aligned plan for each team and each individual employee, you'll provide more understanding and fun and put everyone's time and effort into working towards the same goal.

Provide a pre-defined and aligned framework for each team, with clear objectives. Ensure that everyone, from executives to individual employees, puts his or her time and effort into working toward the same goal.

Buyer personas

If you don't have an unambiguous sense of who you are trying to attract, who you want to engage and for whom you are creating the ultimate experience, it all becomes very difficult. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal client based on real data and a number of educated speculations about demographics, behaviour, motivations and goals.

Personas are created through research, analysis and a close look at who is already buying from you. They can help you get into the mindset of your potential buyers and create the right content. Personas keep every aspect of this new way of doing business together.

Buyer’s journey

Every interaction your persona has with your organization should be tailored to where they are in the buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey is the active research process someone goes through leading up to a purchase.

Knowing your persona's buyer’s journey is the key to creating the best possible content. Instead of leading someone through a standard funnel, the buyer's journey is tailored to your buyer and the stage they are at.

The most important stages you need to lead the customer through are:

• Awareness stage: the buyer realizes he has a problem.
• Consideration stage: the buyer defines his problem and explores the possibilities to solve it.
• Decision stage: the buyer chooses a solution.

This way you make sure your customers want to buy from you instead of trying to sell it to them. This way you can automate a large part of the process and focus on helping your customers as much as possible.

Tools to help you out

Finally, there are a lot of tools that can make this all a lot easier for you and your company. It all starts with the CRM (Content Management System) you use. A tool to store your prospects and customers. These contacts are the heart of every part of your marketing, sales and service strategy.

Because buying behaviour is constantly evolving, the tactics and tools you use to reach them have to do the same. We are happy to help you determine what it is you need to lead you to new heights and help you achieve more than ever before!