Many executives, in particular those of B2B and service oriented organizations, are faced with the challenge of having to rethink how to succeed in today’s digital age. This rethinking raises questions as well as the dialogue today on the effectiveness of the traditional functions of sales, marketing, support, and customer service.

1. The 4 B’s of
Buyer Experience Innovation
By Tony Zambito, President & CEO , Goal Centric
www.goalcentric.com
www.thebuyerexperience.om
Copyright 2010 Goal Centric Management, Inc.

2. Introduction
Many executives, in particular those of B2B and service
oriented organizations, are faced with the challenge of having
to rethink how to succeed in today’s digital age. This
rethinking raises questions as well as the dialogue today on
the effectiveness of the traditional functions of sales,
marketing, support, and customer service. Perplexing
executives as well is the rapid infusion of digital and social
media that buyers are engaging with at an increasing rate yet
with no clear discerning picture of what the future holds.

3. Harmony
An inherent issue is that the necessary rethinking can fall prey
to the traditional function-based approaches organizations
have done over the past quarter-century. Viewing what each
function is capable of in isolation and missing the
harmonizing around the buyer experience. Buyer Experience
Innovation offers a framework for executives to rethink and
discover insightful means of creating memorable buyer
experiences that its organization can deliver on. Leading their
organization like an orchestra to understand how, in perfect
harmony, they can create the sweeping composition that
rivets the attention of buyers.
Such a composition can be written and designed when
executives can harmonize around the 4 B’s of Buyer
Experience Innovation. Creating a new way of thinking that
transforms the company that is in harmony with its buyers.

4. The 4 B’s

5. Buyer Insight
The fact that the buyer-seller relationship is undergoing
transformative reshaping is backed by many quantitative
oriented survey and studies. However, gaining true insight
into buyer behaviors, attitudes, perceptions, patterns, and
etc. can be gained via qualitative efforts that are grounded in
ethnographic and anthropological principles. Buying today
has become more sophisticated and has a multitude of
variables that did not exist even a decade ago. It is fair to say
that many organizations are adopting specific buying
strategies whereby decisions are often made well ahead of
any sales involvement and the decisions are more about who
to purchase from versus what to purchase. Without investing
in informing buyer insight, executives will be in the dark on
how to craft buyer experiences that makes them part of an
organization’s buying strategies.

6. Buyer Personas
Buyer Personas, archetypal representations of real buyers,
have enjoyed increasing attention over the past few
years. Buyer personas, if constructed in the framework of
profiles only, fall far short of their potential for executives to
utilize as a resource for understanding who their target
buyers truly are and for using buyer personas as an executive
communications tool to harmonize the organization around
buyer experience. Buyer personas have their roots in design
principles and are of immense value when they are built on
the foundation of qualitative research and put into action
contextually through scenarios, narrative stories, and
mapping. Executives can use buyer personas to bring the
focus on buyers and the experiences that will endear them to
the organizations.

7. Buyer Journey Mapping
Buying processes and buying decisions are being restructured
many times over. This is contrary to prevailing conventional
perspectives that buyers, in general, take a similar linear path
to making buying decisions. There has been much realization
that the traditional “funnel” as we know it has been radically
changed yet what a new modified funnel may look like
continues to be applied to the general as opposed to the one-
to-one necessary. Buyer Journey Mapping, when conducted
on the basis of qualitative research, can provide tremendous
insight into not only the paths buyers take but also highlight
the critical moments of truths that are relevant. Buyer
Journey Mapping, when done for specific markets and/or
solutions, provides a critical integrated view of the buying
process and how building blocks can be formed to create a
harmonized buyer experience.

8. Buyer Experience Design
Integrated design thinking will be critical to designing buyer
experiences that resonates with buyers on an individual level
but also creates alignment with organizations creating buying
strategies. Informed with buyer insights, buyer personas, and
buyer journey mappings, executives can lead their teams
through initiatives of designing and innovating unique buyer
experiences. We’ve seen new approaches and services arise
out of the rapidly changing buyer landscape such as demand
generation, marketing automation, content marketing, and
sales enablement to name just a few. Buyer Experience
Design can provides the guidance needed by executives to
design the right composition of these new approaches that
will help their organization deliver extraordinary buyer
experiences.

9. Conclusion
Organizations can focus on the 4 B’s of Buyer Experience
innovation and create harmonized buyer experiences that
aligns their efforts with specific buying strategies. Executives
who can shift the thinking of their teams to integrated buyer
experiences will have their buyers listening because they will
have proven a simple fact – they cared enough to listen.

10. Produced By:
Tony Zambito
The 4 B’s
President & CEO
Goal Centric
of
www.goalcentric.com
www.thebuyerexperience.com
Buyer
Copyright 2010
Goal Centric Management, Inc.
Experience
Innovation