The universe is made of stuff. The fancy term for the basis of this stuff is matter. But based on some calculations, we can only account for 10-20% of the matter in the universe- the other 80-90% is missing. The common term for this missing matter is Dark Matter.
The same concept applies to selling. Only 10-20% of selling is visible to a vendor, and the rest is hidden and unaccounted for in our sales and marketing processes. This is the Dark Matter of Selling- the missing 90% of the sales process.
This is what happens when we aren’t in front of the customer.
Vendors do only 10% of the selling in an enterprise sales process. The other 90% of the selling is done internally by champions and other stakeholders in the company.
This is a good point to keep in mind- I meet many sales professionals who seem to think potential customers only think about your product when they are talking to you.
So how do we handle and manage this scandalous fact. Well, lets consider communication channels.
We communicate to customers 4 ways:
- we talk to them
- we write stuff that they read
- someone else talks to them
- someone else writes stuff they read
One loose way of categorizing this:
- sales (we talk)
- marketing (we write)
- brand (someone else talks)
- P.R. (someone else writes)
This is probably in the reverse order of long-term influence. Nothing beats conversation for sales, but those moments are limited and forgotten. The written form is often being used when we aren’t at the account.
The internet and your website are now a 7×24x365 trade show. Even if you perfectly sell your champion, how well will communicate your fine words to his coworkers and managers? And what happens when they go on the Internet and visit your site and other sites online.
Maybe it makes sense to consider these secondary audiences as a specific target for marketing collateral and effort? Those people you never get to present to but who nevertheless are involved in the buying process and end up researching you and visiting your site.
Also, what happens when your champion actively sell and market. How do they create THEIR support materials?
In this case, it makes sense to make reusable content available from your materials and your website. How about posting and distributing slides in PowerPoint format with encouragement to reuse? How about pointing to 3rd party sources that enable the same?
There is a potential downside to this. Is there a risk you only get involved in 5% of the selling now that you’ve empowered your champions? Information is one card you hold to gain a further audience.
The answer to this depends on the customer. Are they actively communication and working internally? If so, it’s happening anyway, so provide information. Are they passively interested and not actively involved yet? Then you are still building demand and need all the meetings you can get.
There is no easy answer. However, this secondary selling is happening, and it is impacting you. It’s something to keep in mind.
