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Key Takeaways Buyers make many of their most important decisions long before they speak with a salesperson.
Buyers apply five tests throughout the buying journey: the problem test, the expertise test, the fit test, the solution test and the risk test.
Only after buyers have worked through all five tests do they typically develop enough conviction to move forward.
A few months ago, I was speaking with the CEO of a growing SaaS company. His sales team was missing quota, while qualified lead volume was up, and leadership had reached a familiar conclusion.
“We need better sales execution,” he said. The assumption seemed reasonable. If prospects weren’t buying after a sales-led demo and follow-up, the sales team must be the problem.
We uncovered a different pattern by interviewing 18 prospects who spoke with sales and decided against buying.
The sales team couldn’t close prospects who were expecting a completely different buying experience. By improving the buying experience rather than narrowly focusing on sales execution, the SaaS company more than doubled sales conversion from 14% to 31% of qualified leads.
The buying decision starts long before sales
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