THE BUYER ENABLEMENT GUIDE - A MODERN APPROACH TO B2B SELLING

Let me ask two seemingly obvious questions about B2B sales:

• Who is in charge of selling?
• Who is in charge of buying?

Most would answer that the B2B sales team is in charge of selling and the prospect and any accompanying influencers and decision makers (aka the “buying group”) are in charge of buying. It’s just the opposite. The B2B sales team is in charge of buying and the buyer is in charge of selling.

I promise this isn’t a riddle - it’s how B2B sales have evolved over the years as sales cycles have grown longer and more complex. Buyer enablement is exerting leadership in the B2B buying process and equipping your champion to do the selling for you inside their organization.

Let’s look at selling first.

YOU ARE NOT IN CHARGE OF SELLING, THE BUYER IS

Buyer enablement means you are shifting your mindset from selling to enabling the buyer(s). Instead of the focus being on you, the focus is on them. What this means is that yes, you need to sell (persuade, educate, consult, etc) the initial champion, but after that, you need to empower and equip the champion to sell for you. While you can help, the internal champion is the one who is going to go get the deal done for you internally.

So who is doing the selling? You or the buyer? The buyer! That initial buyer has to sell to the rest of the buying group. In truth, you’ll both be selling to the buying group, but largely the buying group is going to look to the internal change agent, or champion (also called the “mobilizer” as CEB likes to call them), to lead them through the process of making a purchase decision. You are just an enabler.

So how do you enable them? That is the purpose of the attached ebook. Every chapter will give you specific things you can do to enable the buyer, and every stakeholder in the buying group.

Further resources available in the Consensus library here.