Does your web site align with your sales process?

Sometimes I hate web sites. When many companies talk about marketing, they inevitably end up focusing myopically on their company web site as if it was the singular representation of their marketing and sales effort.

Your web site is important to your sales process. However, it is simply one more arrow in your sales and marketing quiver. The key is to understand how it functions in the sales cycle and to align it with your sales process and customer buying criteria. Sounds easy, right? Easier said than done.

One thing that makes this idea difficult to implement, and indeed one of the main reasons most sites are deficient in this area is that the wrong people control the content on the site. Most companies put the marketing or I.T. department in charge of the company’s web site. Neither of these groups typically have any incentive to collaborate with the sales team so the content of the site often conflicts with how sales functions.

In the majority of B2B selling environments, the web site plays a critical role. Once a buyer is aware of your company (either through search engines or via referral or other lead generation work) the first thing they do is check your site. My research indicates that customers visit potential suppliers sites for a few, highly focused reasons: to determine if your company does what the buyer thinks she needs and are you credible – in other words, she wants to know if you are “for real”. If you pass these two tests, you will make the short list. If you don’t, you’ll never know.

The typical B2B buyer spends only about forty seconds at your site with the vast majority (over 80%) never going past your home page. You need to make sure this visit is relevant to the buyer and answers these key questions:


What’s in it for me?
What EXACTLY do you do?
Why should I choose you over your competitor?
Why should I pay you more when your competitors charge less?
Why should I take time to talk to you?

If your site aligns with your marketing and sales processes and delivers the right messaging at the right time, you will make more short lists and, ultimately, more sales.

What do Customers Want?

One thing I hear all the time from my clients is “Our customers simply want the lowest price.” When I ask them if they are the low price leader in their market, they always say they are not. Only then do they realize that their assumption about pricing might not be accurate – after all, if they are not the lowest priced provider, and customers only buy the lowest priced option they would not be in business. This is not to say that pricing isn’t important. My point is that there is a good chance we don’t really know what our customers want and more importantly how they evaluate us in comparison to competitive offerings.

The good news is that your customer wants to help you be more successful. By asking the right questions, under the right circumstances you can have an accurate understanding of the customers buying criteria.

The Right Questions
I’ve done hundreds of customer surveys in my career. The vast majority of these assignments started with my client requesting the measurement of “satisfaction” or “brand equity”. While I believe that these types of studies can be valuable in the right context, upon further examination of my client’s needs it became clear that the ultimate purpose of the study was to sell more effectively to similar types of customers. Attempting to measure satisfaction doesn’t deliver this result – we all know of satisfied customers that will still buy from someone else if the deal is right. Asking touchy-feely branding questions won’t get you there either – typically these types of questions are too open to subjective interpretation.

If you want to align your marketing and sales programs to persuade in the executive suite, you have to ask the right questions.

For example:
What are your top five buying criteria – the factors you use to evaluate potential suppliers?
How is that criteria ranked?
How do we compare with the competition based on this criteria?
Who else do you perceive as an alternative to what we provide?
What are your primary personal concerns when hiring a new supplier?
What is the single thing a company representative can say that will always get your attention?

The Right Circumstances
If you are interested in the absolute truth, you’ll want to work with an objective, third party to develop your survey and interview your clients. I know that is a scary proposition – trusting some consultant to talk to your hard won, valuable customers. However, it is imperative that your customer can talk freely without worry of hurting your feelings. By utilizing a third party interviewer and implementing an anonymous survey, your customers will let you in on their deepest thoughts and feelings. They will tell a facilitator things they would never tell you to your face. And this is the key to gleaning useful information from customers. I’ve found that customer interviews have an unexpected side effect – they actually strengthen relationships with the responding customer who is flattered that you care enough to ask him/her about what they think.

Your customers want to help you. Give them the opportunity and you will prosper.

Say What? Does your prospect know what you are talking about?

The English language consists of about two million words that get regular use. Shakespeare used about thirty thousand. If you want to be understood, that’s way too many words. Over and over again in my consulting business I meet seasoned sales people who have fallen into the trap of bloviating. They tell the excruciating story of their company as the buyer nods off to endless Powerpoint slides and meaningless jargon.

Here’s a newsflash: The buyer doesn’t care about your company’s history, it’s achievements, awards, certifications or the size of your facilities. They care only about what is in it for them. And they want this information in as few words as possible.

My clients are good at what they do. They deliver impressive benefits to their customers and are more than worthy of winning the business. The trouble comes when it’s time to concisely tell the prospect WHAT the company does and HOW it will positively impact the customer. Too many companies communicate in a style that is designed to obfuscate reality – making WHAT they do sound far more important, complex and interesting than it is. Let’s face it, much of what we do isn’t that interesting to buyers. They are far more interested in HOW it will impact THEM. In other words, they don’t care how the sausage is made, they only want to know how great the sausage tastes.

Here’s an example of obfuscation and “marketing speak”. Can you decipher what this company does? (I’ve edited these statements and changed the name of the company)

ABC Company is a leading national provider of technology services. Since 1972, we have delivered high-quality, cost-effective technology solutions to empower strategic IT initiatives in clients across the nation. With continued success in managing, integrating, and supporting a wide array of technologies, ABC Company takes pride in enhancing business operations to achieve optimal performance.

ABC Company offers a breadth of services designed to fully address the needs of a strategically-oriented company. Our consultative approach and flexibility allow ABC Company to identify the specific needs of our business partners, providing them with scalable solutions designed to drive down costs, eliminate downtime, and help channel internal resources to core company functions.

Why do so many businesses choose ABC Company as their service provider?
Industry skills and certifications
Broad customer base-with experience in every major vertical, we understand their needs
Repeatable, successful implementations
National Footprint
Quality and Consistency through Process
Strategic Partnerships
Fiscal Stability


What does ABC Company do? “deliver high-quality, cost-effective technology services.”, “empower strategic IT initiatives in clients across the nation” Uh, what?

Of particular interest to me is the section about “Why do so many businesses choose ABC Company”. Each item listed is inwardly focused – each is a feature of ABC Company and none of it tells the prospect WHAT is in it for him. Furthermore, none of this information differentiates ABC Company from its competitors. They all say the same things forcing the prospect to evaluate them only on price.

A better approach would be something like:

Why Choose ABC Company?

Decrease downtime by 23%
Reduce IT maintenance costs by up to 50%
Reduce personnel requirements by 2000 person hours per year

Or something like that. I’m still not sure what “ABC Company” actually does.

Here’s another example.

About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Committed to delivering innovation, Accenture collaborates with its clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With deep industry and business process expertise, broad global resources and a proven track record, Accenture can mobilize the right people, skills, and technologies to help clients improve their performance.

The web site goes on to list eleven more sections entitled “Company Overview”, “Message from Our Chairman”, “Locations”, “Corporate Citizenship” and “Core Values” Thousands of words but not a single coherent message that tells exactly what they do and how it impacts the customer. I did find some case studies that were more specific but they were buried five or six clicks down.

I could give many more examples but my point is this: you need to tell your prospect exactly WHAT you do and HOW you will improve his condition within thirty seconds. Don’t underestimate the knowledge and intelligence of the customer. Being crystal clear in your presentations will differentiate your company better than any feature or sales technique.