Small Business Today Magazine MAR 2016 AMERICAN SERVICES | Page 20

EDITORIAL FEATURE

Your Next Step

The 7 Stages of the New Buying Cycle
By Jack Warkenthien, CEO of NextStep Solutions

L

ast year, I chose to rewrite my original
sales tome, “Life’s A Sales Call: How
to Succeed in the World’s Oldest Profession”. Since it was first published
in 2005, the content was a decade old, so
imagine the changes that have occurred
in the sales and selling arena. For past
readers, the epiphany will be the fact that,
today, it’s far more important to learn how
people buy than learn how to sell to them.
For starters, by the time you’re aware of
a sales candidate, more than 57% of the
buying decisions have been already made
(according to the CEB study-The Challenger Sale), and there are probably 5.4
decision makers involved in the purchase.
Scary? Yes, of course! The reason is because there is so much more information
now available online that purchasers are
doing their own research instead of trusting you to provide them with what they
need to know. So let’s first review the traditional buying cycle.

The 4 Traditional Stages of the Buying Cycle

So how has B2B (business-to-business)
buying changed in recent years? During
my research, I realized that one of the
most significant changes lies in the
stages of the buying cycle. More or less,
there’s a set process we all go through
when making buying decisions from
a series of steps designed to help us go
from uninformed and curious to investing our cash in a solution that solves
our problem or addresses our challenges. Regardless of the exact terminology
used, the basic buying cycle resembles
the following (the equivalent sales cycle
stage that correlates is in parenthesis):
• Stage 1: Awareness (Discovery). We
become aware of a problem, need, challenge, or opportunity and this leads to
dissatisfaction and a desire to take action.

• Stage 2: Outreach (Matching). We
reach out to others, conduct research,
and speak to potential vendors in an effort to understand the myriad of potential solutions that exist and match the
ones that best fit our needs.
• Stage 3: Selection (Resolving). During
the research phase, we develop a preference for one particular vendor or
solution. Since buying is an emotional decision, one solution becomes our
emotional favorite and that horse moves
to the front of the track.
• Stage 4: Purchase (Opening). We purchase the desired product or service,
thereby addressing the problem or challenge identified and meeting our needs
along the way.

The 3 New Stages of the Buying Cycle

The universe of buyers has changed pretty
dramatically in recent years. Procurement
has risen from being an administrative
function to more of a strategic player on
the corporate stage as there are much
higher stakes when things go wrong. With
the internet becoming such a ubiquitous,
on-demand, open source of information,
content marketing and thought leadership
is available to anyone with a browser. Finally, the ground has been leveled between
new start-ups and long established businesses due to the new affordable technologies available to all comers. All of these
factors have had an incredible impact on
buyer behavior and specifically on the
steps your buyers take when considering
the purchase of new products or services.
In addition to the 4 traditional buying stages, there are 3 new ones to understand:
1. Research: After the Awareness stage,
buyers now take advantage of all the

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