Reading Your Buyer's Digital Body Language (TM)

From a sales-driven sales cycle....
The traditional B2B transaction has been almost entirely a sales function rooted in face-to-face interactions, such as business luncheons, board room presentations and product demos. After passing off the lead, marketing contributed little to the process. The best sales professionals were highly adept at reading body language and buying signals revealed during in-person meetings in a conference room or over lunch. Subtle gestures such as facial expressions, eye contact, raised eyebrows, head nods or crossed arms, could tell savvy sales professionals much about a prospect’s buying disposition. For example, by learning early in the buying cycle that a CFO was taking hard look at ROI or that a VP of Operations was leaning towards another solution provider, a salesperson had the opportunity to address objections and ultimately improve the odds of closing a deal.

To a customer-driven buying cycle
However, over the past two to three years, the buying cycle for complex B2B products and services has fundamentally changed. The evolution of the Web 2.0 environment and its accompanying rich media and easy access to competitive product information and peer feedback, has transformed how most companies research and evaluate prospective solution providers. As the buying process moves online, salespeople are getting less face time with clients. They are increasingly dependent on their marketing teams to provide them with insights into which of their prospects are showing the strongest buying signals.

What smart business are doing about it
To succeed in this new business climate, smart businesses are adapting and realizing that the next frontier is to read and respond to the “Digital Body Language” of their prospects. This new body language is invisible to the sales team, yet is a better indicator of real buying interest than anything else in the salesperson’s toolkit. It is revealed through online activities such as website visits, white paper downloads, and email responses. Tracking this behavior can help companies quickly identify the buyers that are “raising their hands” to show interest in their solution.

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