Many B2B companies strive to establish awareness and recognition among C-suites on the client side, based on the idea that senior management alone are the ones who ultimately approve a deal at the company.
At the same time, it comes as no surprise that today’s B2B purchases are made by large groups of highly diverse stakeholders. The shifts to more complex solutions, increased involvement of procurement and third party consultants have all contributed to increased consensus requirements.
Innovative suppliers are finding effective ways to create consensus
HBR
When a group of stakeholders can see their shared interests, they can find common ground. As a matter a fact, it’s only when the stakeholders cannot come to an agreement, that top executives have to deal with the consequences.
Innovative suppliers are finding effective ways to create consensus in these buying groups. Those companies prime groups with a common language and shared perspectives, motivate internal champions to advocate for their firms’ solutions, and equip those champions to help groups reach agreement.
Most suppliers are focusing on the wrong stage of the buying process, falling all over themselves to persuade customers to choose them, rather than helping customers settle on a solution. The phase B2B buyers experience the most challenges with is identifying a solution—agreeing on the best course regardless of supplier.
Marketing departments are well positioned to foster consensus: They have tools that can reach customers more effectively than sales can during the critical consensus-building process, and they can identify broad customer insights that they can translate into scalable marketing approaches and materials.
A good way to start fostering consensus is to use your Personas and distribute Brand Messages that triggers inspirational values, and provide the right assets to facilitate solution identification internally with help from you.
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