Mediafly (Literally) Wrote the Book on Value-Based Selling

It seems counterintuitive. Buying is unarguably easier and faster now – often even without tangible currency, but simply a thumbprint. We move through our day expecting to press a button and receive what we purchased in mere moments. Yet, if everyday consumer purchases require nothing more than a functioning thumb, why is the B2B buying journey so broken?

84% of B2B buyers report that purchase decisions take longer than expected – twice as long for most.

The buying journey is not only slowed, but often stalled. A recent Gartner study found 94% of the respondents have participated in a buying cycle where the effort was canceled before the purchase was completed. It’s not that more deals are being lost to the competition, they’re being lost to doing nothing. We think of the current buying cycle as not only broken, but frozen.

Today’s buyers are “Cold as ICE.”

INFORMED: Buyers have more information than ever. They’re also more in control than ever.
CAUTIOUS: Buyers are increasingly cautious and skeptical about the claims vendors are making about their products and services. They’ve been burnt before, and they want to ensure their purchases aren’t wasting resources.
ECONOMIC-FOCUSED: Buyers are more frugal. They have more stakeholders scrutinizing purchases and require a new level of ROI and bottom-line impact of software investments.

Surviving Frugalnomics with Value-Based Selling
By-the-book sales enablement best practices to fuel better customer engagements and close more deals

This de-evolved, broken buying journey presents a new opportunity for you to shift your approach from the traditional product pitch to value-based storytelling – the story of the buyer’s needs and goals. Mediafly’s Chief Evangelist, Tom Pisello, has authored a new book, titled “Evolved Selling™: Optimizing Sales Enablement in the Age of Frugalnomics.” The book is a first-of-its-kind, step-by-step guide to assess your sales performance and evolve to fueling better customer engagements at every stage of the journey. Tom created the guide to help you tell a more effective, ROI-rich, value story that walks the buyer through the last mile of the purchase decision. It helps you evolve, even in a de-evolved buyer’s journey.

The book provides actionable takeaways of Mediafly’s Evolved Selling™ approach, via “The 4 I’s.”INSPIRE: Are you using the right messaging? How do you inspire buyers to “get unstuck” from the status quo and take action? Effective sellers communicate to buyers the cost of doing nothing – for their own career, to stave off competition, and to gain the revenue to survive as a company. Inspiration means teaching and providing the insights and diagnostics to get them to understand where they are broken and what to do about it.

INFLUENCE: Are you using the right content? Are your sellers using the right (dynamic) content at the right time? For content to drive results, your reps need the flexibility to tell the story of the value your product or service brings in the context of the buyer’s business, industry, or challenge – when the buyer needs it.

INTERACT: Are you having the right conversations? Do your sellers go into meeting with the same linear PowerPoint? Or are they collaborating and prescribing customized solutions? Evolved sellers, who approach meetings with interactive selling tools, like ROI and TCO calculators, can tell a value story that gets the buyers attention…and keeps it.

(Lead with) INTELLIGENCE: Do you have the right insights? Is your solution properly integrated with the other key components of your sales tech stack for a holistic view of your buyer? Does it incorporate new and emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)? Can you effectively track and measure the impact your content has on revenue? Understanding how your content is being used, knowing what content works and what doesn’t, and utilizing those insights to optimize future content efforts ensures your marketing and sales teams have what they need to move deals forward.

Sure, the buyer’s journey is broken. But smart business leaders know there’s real opportunity in an environment like this. They look for systems and processes that are broken and find ways to fix them. Why? Because that’s where the value is.

Want to know more? The book is available on Amazon: