You Don’t Know Your B2B Buyers: 6 Symptoms of a Buyer Blind Spot Most Business Leaders Will Ignore in 2019

Lorin McCann is the Founder of the Customer Intelligence Institute, a market research and advisory firm that specializes in buyer insights for B2Bs.

Almost every business leader I’ve spoken with over the years insists they know their customers.

And they aren’t kidding.

But when we ask them to brief us on their buyers, they come up short.

They’re experts on their market, can identify target companies, purchase lists for target accounts. But more often than not, an understanding of B2B buyers at the executive level stops there.

This is a problem because we don’t market to companies target accounts, we market to people. And we don’t sell to companies or target accounts, we sell to people.

If you’re like a majority of B2B business leaders, you’re probably well versed in the macro insights about your buyers. But do you know (and more importantly, does your team know) the challenges and pain points of the people on your buying committee well enough to power highly effective sales and marketing organizations?

If you’re wondering why you keep losing deals to competitors, you need to rule out a buyer blind spot. Here are 6 symptoms that most business leaders will ignore in 2019:

1. You conflate a target account or ICP with your buying committee

The concept of an ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) has become trendy in B2B along with account based marketing.

I think this is an excellent trend. An ICP is a profile of a company’s best and most profitable customers. And tailoring marketing and sales processes to these types of accounts is a move that an increasing number of savvy business leaders are making.

But an ICP is still an account-level overview. It doesn’t take into account the practical, make-it-or-break-it buying experience that humans on your buying committee are experiencing.

Business leaders are often insulated from customer interactions because they work at such a high level. They see the metrics but miss the actionable nuances behind them. It’s why so many business leaders we connect with underestimate their organizations’ need for buying committee research.

Simon Sinek weighs in, There's no CEO on the planet responsible for the customer. They're just not. They're responsible for the people responsible for the customer.

Forward thinking CMOs are taking the initiative and actually getting on the phone with real customers. But on a day-to-day level, they still don’t engage with buyers in the same way organizations like marketing and sales do.

For anyone in a sales, marketing, or a go-to-market role who is responsible for day-to-day touchpoints with prospects and customers, buying committee insights are desperately needed.

2. You’re brand or product obsessed

You might assume that marketing teams are naturally customer obsessed.

It's counterintuitive that many B2Bs—particularly their marketing teams—prioritize brand or product over customers, but it's extremely common. According to SiriusDecisions, 60% of B2Bs admit they don’t understand their buyers.

When we ask business leaders to brief us on their buyers, most of the time they start by listing attributes of target accounts and then transition into a discussion about brand and product.

It’s an odd problem to have, overlooking the customer. But we (B2Bs) have it.

Shar Vanboskirk of Forrester calls out brand and product obsession among marketers, “If the ultimate goal is to sell more products rather than solve customer problems, then you’re not customer obsessed.”

3. You’re competitor obsessed

Nothing can replace competitive research, but there does come a point when many companies use it as a crutch in the absence of buyer insights.

The good news is, if your competitors are like most other B2Bs out there, they don’t know their customers very well either. That’s a huge opportunity.

If your competitors are like most other B2Bs out there, they don’t know their customers very well either. That’s a huge opportunity.

Instead of looking over your shoulder at what competitors are doing, we encourage business leaders to base decisions on what is best for their buyers and focus on solving their problems in innovative ways.

Ultimately, it’s about what your customers need from you, not flexing bigger than the competition (or copying tactics as a knee-jerk reaction).

4. Target accounts aren’t engaging enough with your content

If B2B was experiencing its own version of the Middle Ages, low-relevancy content would be its bubonic plague.

I should know—I've produced my fair share of it in the past!

SiriusDecisions reports that 60% of B2B content goes unused (the same percentage of B2Bs who admit to not understanding their buyers).

But by now, we should know better. Under performing content is a distress signal that a business has a buyer blind spot.

When content is under performing, it's time to ask, is our messaging inspired by the boardroom or our buyers?

Is messaging inspired by buyers, or the boardroom?

Evaluate your content strategy: Has content production been delegated to a junior-level employee or is it designed by stakeholders in customer success and mapped to the buyer’s journey? Are engagement rates acceptable? Does sales actually reach for content your marketing team is producing? Ultimately, is content contributing to pipeline?

5. It takes your team forever to make decisions

In a startup you have small teams that are much closer to their customers, especially when founders are still involved in sales and marketing. High-growth companies and mature companies risk losing this edge if they haven’t invested in and democratizing resources like BCPs (Buying Committee Profiles) or buyer personas.

A talented and overworked VP of demand gen recently shared with us, “I spend 80% of my time keeping [my leaders] out of their own way.”

When it takes your team forever to get past bottlenecks and make decisions, you likely have a buyer blind spot. When business leaders invest in customer and buyer insights, decisions are easy to make because they’re based on intelligence, not guesswork.

6. You’re not hitting sales or revenue targets

According to SiriusDecisions, 52% of the time when sales doesn’t reach their quotas, it’s because they’ve been unable to demonstrate value in the language their customers/prospects are using.

A disconnect between sales and marketing means that prospects are getting a confusing messaging mix at what should be fluid stages of the buyer’s journey.

But the value of correctly implemented buyer personas is huge—Cintell reports that 71% of companies who exceed revenue and lead goals have documented personas vs. 37% who simply meet goals and 26% who miss them and top performing companies have mapped 90% or more of their customer database by persona.

We see this with the companies we work with. Customer centric orgs earn more revenue and experience successful acquisitions compared to companies who don’t focus on their customers.

Review

Leaving your customers’ buying experience unexplored perpetuates an uphill battle in every area of the business.

Conflating a target account with your buying committee, competitor obsession, brand and product obsession, low-engagement content, slow decision making, and missed sales and revenue targets are all signs that your business has a buyer blind spot. If you recognize any of these symptoms in your own org, congrats! You have an untapped, high-leverage opportunity in buying committee research.

The solution?

Start talking to your buyers and operationalize your findings within your marketing and sales organizations, as well as other departments. Eliminate the guesswork from your growth strategy, stop micromanaging your team and instead, mobilize an army.

Have you identified a buyer blind spot in your business? How did you take action?