Selling to Customers how They Want to Buy
The
IMPACT Cycle is the universal process of how customers buy and understanding when and how to engage customers can help marketing and sales organizations define most appropriate marketing methods and engagement touch-points in order optimize their cost of customer acquisition.
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, however early customer engagement is not possible without appropriate executive-level engagement in what will look more like a consulting session than a sales call.
The Dell salesperson is engaged when the buyer is ready to make a transaction. The Salesforce.com sales exec. 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.
- Managing the team and the customer to retain control through the IMPACT process.
Grabbing the attention of a vendor early in the buying cycle is made easier through the
Value Identification process.
