• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

PropelGrowth

Financial Services Content Marketing and Content Strategy

Menu
  • Home
  • Who We Are
    • Why PropelGrowth?
    • Management Team
    • Acumatica Marketing Team
    • Privacy Policy
    • Close
  • What We Do
    • Marketing Strategy
      • Buyer Personas
      • Strategy Development
      • Acumatica Partner Marketing
      • Integrating PR
      • Creative Design
    • Marketing Programs
      • Content Marketing for the Buying Process
      • Content Marketing Programs
      • Thought Leadership In The Buying Process
      • Thought Leadership Programs
      • Lead Generation and Lead Nurturing
      • LinkedIn Sales Prospecting
      • Marketing Coaching Program
    • Marketing Content
      • Marketing Automation
      • Email Marketing
      • Website Content
      • Blogging and Article Marketing
      • Case Studies
      • White Papers and E-books
      • Research Studies
      • Live and Online Events
    • icon-coaching-2-01
    • Close
  • Who We Do It For
    • Who We Serve
    • Client Case Studies
      • What This CEO Learned From Buyer Persona Research Transformed Her Company
      • Close
    • Close
  • Resources
    • Sales Resources
      • Solving the No Decision Problem
      • Close
    • Marketing Resources
      • B2B Lead Conversion Rates
      • Close
    • The TrendSpotters Podcast Series
    • Close
  • Blog
  • Contact
    • Close

How to Win 74% of Your ERP Deals

By Candyce Edelen

Insight selling helps ERP sellers become the trusted advisor to buyers, helping them to make informed buying decisions.

Studies show that 74% of B2B technology deals go to the seller who brings the most buyer insight and helps form the buying vision. You can only achieve this with in-depth buyer research.

Buying ERP is a Complex Process

The process for buying an ERP platform is complex. Buyers need to know a lot about their business processes and workflows just to figure out which platforms to consider. They know ERP will touch nearly every aspect of their business. No matter what they choose, it’s going to be complex and time consuming to deploy. And getting it wrong can put the business at significant risk.

So buyers have to do a lot of research, much of it online, before making a decision. But this doesn’t simplify their buying process. They have to sort through a massive amount of information online to find what matters most to their business.

ERP Buyers Hesitate to Talk to Sellers

Most ERP buyers are hesitant to talk to salespeople too early in the process, because sellers tend to enter the conversation with the wrong agenda. Sellers push product, when buyers are looking for advice. The buyer doesn’t need a feature dump. They need help diagnosing their problems, sifting through the options, and making informed buying decisions.

ERP Reseller’s Opportunity for Competitive Advantage

As an ERP reseller, this dilemma creates an opportunity for tremendous competitive advantage.

Buyers prefer to work with trusted advisors. If your team can bring valuable business insights and help the customer make good decisions, you’ll set your firm up for a very high win rate. In fact, Forrester Research found that 74 percent of executive buyers ended up buying from the sales person who first created the buying vision.

The sales rep who first brings value and insight wins.

But the contra is equally important. Corporate Visions’ research found that “89 percent of first sales meetings fail to get a second meeting because the seller hasn’t shown business value.”

The Importance of Buyer Insights

This underscores the importance of having a deep understanding of your buyers.

Buyers favor sellers who can help them make sense of the noise and teach them useful things about their own businesses. They want to know what other businesses in a similar situation are doing. They want to feel confident in their decisions.

That means your salespeople need to understand the issues and challenges faced by your customers. That’s the only way they can offer insight and value beyond what the customer can find online. This is called “insight selling.”  Insight selling is the most effective means of helping buyers make good decisions and gain organizational buy-in. Only with a deep understanding of a business’ needs can sellers provide insights and equip buyers to build a compelling business case.

Buyer Research Equips Your Sellers

So where do you get this insight? From buyer research.

In-depth buyer research gives your sales team deep insight into why customers buy from you. This research:

  • Uncovers the critical problems clients were facing and how they diagnosed their needs.
  • Unearths the business case your buyers used to get their organization on board.
  • Reveals internal objections and how the buying committee overcame those objections in order to move forward.

Buyer research gives your team insight into the problems clients face and how they’re being solved. It uncovers stories your sales team can tell future prospects to help jumpstart discovery conversations.

The research also enables you to formulate the right questions to ask to help prospects diagnose their own problems. It helps align your sales process to the customer’s buying process. It also helps you anticipate questions and objections that members of the buying committee are likely to raise…even those objections that are never presented to you as a seller.

This research equips your salespeople, so they can be FAR more effective in selling real business solutions rather than product features.

Buyer Research Enables Insight Selling

With insight selling, your team can come to the table with new ideas, perspectives, and data. Insight selling is about partnering with your customer and helping them make good business decisions.

Buying ERP technology can feel like a minefield. Buyer insights allow your sellers to come to the table with valuable ideas, perspectives and data. This way, sellers can become true partners with your customers and offer value beyond what buyers can find online.  And that improves the likelihood that you’ll close more sales. Because 74% of B2B technology deals go to the seller who brings the most insight.

If you’d like to learn more about how to research buyers and collect these insights, click here to read about buyer research. Or, if you’d rather talk over your specific situation, schedule an appointment with me.

Buyer Personas: Sales Won’t Let Us Interview Customers
Acumatica Partner Marketing
Can Buyer Personas Improve Revenue?
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Connect
Candyce Edelen
CEO at PropelGrowth
Candyce is the founder and CEO of PropelGrowth. She brings more than twenty years of experience in managing technology companies and has founded four companies prior to PropelGrowth. For the past ten years, Candyce has focused exclusively in the capital markets industry, launching two financial technology companies. Now, she helps financial technology vendors improve their marketing strategy, publish compelling content, and drive revenue through marketing and sales enablement. Contact Candyce at +1 970-300-2280.
Connect
Latest posts by Candyce Edelen (see all)
  • The Reality of Cold Calling for B2B Sales
  • Can Inbound Marketing Generate Enough Leads?
  • How to Fill Your Sales Pipeline Using LinkedIn for Prospecting

Filed Under: Acumarketing, PropelGrowth Blog

About Candyce Edelen

Candyce is the founder and CEO of PropelGrowth. She brings more than twenty years of experience in managing technology companies and has founded four companies prior to PropelGrowth. For the past ten years, Candyce has focused exclusively in the capital markets industry, launching two financial technology companies. Now, she helps financial technology vendors improve their marketing strategy, publish compelling content, and drive revenue through marketing and sales enablement. Contact Candyce at +1 970-300-2280.

Company Profile

PropelGrowth helps companies improve their marketing and sales. We start with in-depth buyer research. Then we develop a marketing and sales strategy and customer-centric messaging. Then we coach your team and help you execute on the strategy by developing thought leadership programs, content for every stage in the buying process, sales collateral, and tools to help buyers buy.

Figure out why and how your buyers buy

Develop a customer-centric marketing strategy

Get coaching from a senior marketing strategist

Recent Posts

  • The Reality of Cold Calling for B2B Sales
  • Can Inbound Marketing Generate Enough Leads?
  • How to Fill Your Sales Pipeline Using LinkedIn for Prospecting
  • Tips from 8 ERP Resellers on How to Leapfrog Your Competition​
  • How to Win 74% of Your ERP Deals
  • Buyer Persona Research, the Key to Niche Marketing
  • 8 Ways a Niche Strategy Improves the Value of Your Practice
  • Acumatica VARs – Spending Money on Marketing with No Results?

Connect With Candyce

View LinkedIn profile Follow on Twitter 

Connect With Phil

View LinkedIn profile Follow on Twitter 

Company Address

3209 Glacier Creek Drive
Ft. Collins, CO 80524
+1 970.300.2280

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • What We Do
  • Who We Do It For
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Search

Copyright © 2021 PropelGrowth LLC · Designed by Phil Donaldson

  • Home
  • Who We Are
    • Why PropelGrowth?
    • Management Team
    • Acumatica Marketing Team
    • Privacy Policy
    • Back
  • What We Do
    • Marketing Strategy
      • Buyer Personas
      • Strategy Development
      • Acumatica Partner Marketing
      • Integrating PR
      • Creative Design
      • Back
    • Marketing Programs
      • Content Marketing for the Buying Process
      • Content Marketing Programs
      • Thought Leadership In The Buying Process
      • Thought Leadership Programs
      • Lead Generation and Lead Nurturing
      • LinkedIn Sales Prospecting
      • Marketing Coaching Program
      • Back
    • Marketing Content
      • Marketing Automation
      • Email Marketing
      • Website Content
      • Blogging and Article Marketing
      • Case Studies
      • White Papers and E-books
      • Research Studies
      • Live and Online Events
      • Back
    • Coaching With Candyce
    • Back
  • Who We Do It For
    • Who We Serve
    • Client Case Studies
      • What This CEO Learned From Buyer Persona Research Transformed Her Company
      • Back
    • Back
  • Resources
    • Sales Resources
      • Solving the No Decision Problem
      • Back
    • Marketing Resources
      • B2B Lead Conversion Rates
      • Back
    • The TrendSpotters Podcast Series
    • Back
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Search
    • Back