What does it mean to be a buyer-centric sales person

Putting your buyer at the centre of an inbound sales methodology will help you align your effort to the new reality of buyer behaviour and have you hitting bigger stretch targets before you know it.

Buyers today are universally more informed and empowered than ever before, meaning control of the buying process has shifted dramatically to them.

Unsolicited sales approaches are now as unwelcome as any junk letter, spam email or in-your-face banner ad.

Inbound marketing has helped marketers adapt to the new needs of buyers, now it's time for your sales to adapt too. 

Inbound sales, like inbound marketing, aligns sales to the way today's buyers want to be treated.

Changing role of sales people

The information that used to only available when talking to a sales rep, like 'what's included' or 'who uses this already', is now freely available online.

So buyers perform their own research and the responsibility for engaging prospects in the early stages of the buying process has shifted towards marketing.

This represents an opportunity for sales people who, rather than bringing cold or lukewarm prospects up-to-speed on the basics of their offering, can focus on adding value to the decision making process of warm and hot leads, becoming a trusted aid and problem solver.

This fits exactly with how buyers want to operate, making their own decisions with the support of sound, expert advice - not a canned sales patter.

Inbound leads only?

It may sound like an inbound approach to sales is limited to working with inbound leads, but it isn't.

The philosophy of putting your buyer at the centre of your selling method, customising your approach to each individual buyer in order to add value rather than reading specs from a product sheet, can be just as effectively applied to prospect targeting and outreach.

When targeting and performing outreach, a successful inbound sales person will be on the lookout for prospects who are active in the buying process, whether they are engaged with the company or not.

This is possible because, just as buyers have become empowered with more information, the internet also empowered sales people with more information too.

Using new tools, like the HubSpot Sales suite of products, sales people can effectively monitor their market for active buyers - identifying which companies anonymous website visitors originate from and listening out on social media for signs that a purchase decision is in progress.

Enrich before you connect

Rather than jumping straight in and hitting up these prospects to offer a product or service, however, an inbound sales person will do something different.

They will seek to enrich their understanding of the potential prospect - exploring their likely structure, roles and responsibilities, potential challenges and visible signs of intent.

They will do this in order to understand how to successfully create the initial connection and how to add value to the prospect's buying process from the outset.

Get certified in inbound sales

Your buyers have already changed, so it's absolutely essential that your sales approach changes too.

To help you get there, HubSpot have a complete inbound sales training and certification package.

This package includes a series of videos and study guides that explain the theory behind the inbound sales methodology and its practical application.

Studying the course and taking the certification will not only grant you the status of being inbound sales certified, buy equip you to apply the inbound sales methodology to your business immediately. If you get inbound marketing and inbound sales working together in your company, you can achieve results you couldn't even imagine before.

Remember, inbound sales transforms sales to match the way people buy. Its as simple as that.