Buyer Distraction Happens in B2B Too

Poor lady. There she was in a crowded grocery store on a Saturday morning with a baby and a toddler, $300 worth of groceries, an impatient cashier and no idea what the PIN for her debit card was.  Each time she tried to focus and conjure up the four little numbers, the baby in the cart ratcheted up the screaming and the toddler escalated the tantrum over the denial of a Kinder Surprise. In the end, she just walked out (to her credit, she took her kids with her).

Buyer distraction is a very common problem in retail. Whiny kids, grumpy spouses, ringing phones and obnoxious sales people can all conspire to overwhelm shoppers and send them out the door empty-handed.  Paco Underhill, in his seminal work on retail habits, can fill you in on the rest, but as I watched this unfold, I was interested in what buyer distractions might be at work in the B2B buying process.

With so many hands potentially touching each deal in B2B, where are there likely to be distractions that can pull focus, create doubt, interrupt processes and generally screw up the whole thing? Let’s start with our friends at the top of the house and work down from there.

What’s distracting the C-Suite?

We know that most purchase decisions actually happen far from the top of the organization, but for larger deals, the C-Suite is where they generally have to go for approval or at least the theatre that passes for organizational consensus.  Yet many apparently final deals that are on their way to a rubber stamp, by the Overlords can suddenly fall apart.

Overlord Buyer Distraction #1: A Buddy in the Business:

Buddies in the Business (let’s call them BITBs) are a significant distractor, especially if the Buddy in question isn’t included in whatever buying process is going on at the time. BITBs do helpful things like send little news tidbits about the industry with introductions like “just in case your current supplier isn’t keeping you up to date…” or “thought you might find this interesting…”

They offer to “take a friendly look” at the proposal or past work and generously suggest where there are gaps or other considerations.  No matter how good the supplier, how carefully managed the research how diligent the due diligence, the tiny distraction of a BITB can unravel a deal in no time at all by creating uncertainty and doubt.

For Overlords, a colleague’s  BITB  can be quite distracting as well, particularly if that BITB is also a family member. If there is suddenly a new competitor included late in the pitch process, it’s a good bet that one Overlord is doing his colleague a solid.

You can’t do much about the BITB thing (except be someone’s Better BITB), but you can make some pre-emptive plays early in the buying process. It took a certain amount of credibility to get your Sales Squirrels in the door in the first place, and it pays to keep reinforcing the credibility all the way through the buying cycle as a way to blunt the BITBs along with any competitors who were eliminated early on and may be trying an end run to get back in the game.

Depending on your business, you may want to double down on the content you are sharing with the decision makers, while looking for opportunities to connect the Overlords with a few of your Subject Matter Experts. This is where your Squirrels can truly shine by setting up those dinner meetings, executive briefings, and, if your budget and Handwringers allow, a fun C-Suite play date.

Overlord Buyer Distraction #2: A Bigger Problem to Solve

Sometimes approvals on deals get knocked clean off the Overlord agenda by a bigger, more pressing problem.  A friend of mine, for example, was waiting for a final sign off on a large deal for some warehouse containers when the customer’s union rejected a contract and threatened to strike. The containers just couldn’t compete with that one and the deal got lost for months in the ensuing Swirlage.

A labour dispute is a pretty big buyer distraction, and not one you can predict or even do much about. But there are things you can do to make sure you don’t end up back on the bottom of the pile. I would start with an opportunistic scan of your solution and their problem. If you’re able to add any value at all, now is the time to say so. If you are not, now is the time to shut up and let them be distracted.

Getting back on the agenda has much more to do with how well you’ve built relationships throughout the organization. You won’t be the only vendor who got sidelined by the Bigger Problem, and this, again, is where your Squirrels’ relationships will win the day. Even if they don’t have good ties into the C-Suite, supporting the people further down in their efforts to push your deal through can pay off nicely. Keep reinforcing your credibility and looking for new information to stay top-of-mind and top-of-inbox. This has the added value of building credibility against the BITBs.

Overlord Buyer Distraction #3: The Coming Zombie Apocalypse

The news of the day can also be a giant buyer distraction, and it pays to keep an eye on the headlines as you finalize a deal. A nasty economic forecast or an unexpected market turn can make your shiny product suddenly look indulgent, irrelevant or silly. As with the Bigger Problem, your first task is to see if you can be part of the solution to the coming zombie thing. If you can credibly and ethically make a case to the C-Suite that you can help them deal with uncertainty, turbulence, cash-flow, regulatory  change or other existential threat, then get your arse in there and help them solve something.  If not, keep up the nurturing and work on the relationships.

For C-Suite buyer distractions the job is to use  strong personal connections and unequivocal credibility to stop them from abandoning the cart full of groceries. You just need to help them get through part where the kids keep screaming.

Next week we’ll look at what’s distracting our friends in the P-Cube.

Related Posts

Forget the C-Suite, the Money’s in the P-Cube
Why You Need a Catch-and-Release Program for Subject Matter Experts

BizMarketer is written by Elizabeth Williams
I help companies have better conversations
Drop me a line at ewilliams@candlerchase.com
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