On the other side of the fence, when speaking to companies, the most common complaint I get is “SDRs don’t understand and respect my buying process”.
There are 2 common entry points into organizations:
Top-down: When there is strategic alignment which incentivizes the decision-maker to instruct management or users to explore your solution further.
Bottoms-up: When users or advocates rave about your product to management.
Understanding an organization’s purchasing process can become complex when multiple stakeholders are part of the equation. This B2B Prospecting Map will help you chart out the right decision-makers and understand the fastest path to getting in front of the right people, especially if you’re dealing with an industry you’re not familiar with.
As you work through the prospecting map above, notice that I’m encouraging you to reach out to multiple individuals within the organization that you’re targeting. You don’t have to contact all potential individuals simultaneously; begin with the one you believe is most likely to respond first, if they’re unresponsive, move on to reach out to others. Your objective is to understand the most efficient entry point and determine the key individuals involved at various stages of your sales process. For example, you might find having the technical gatekeeper, manager, and CEO present in your product demo greatly accelerates approval as you won’t have to book separate meetings to redo the same demo or pitch.
After utilizing this tool to create your map, a helpful follow-up step is to familiarize yourself with their approval procedures and budgeting timelines.
ASSIGNMENT
If you sell B2B, make a copy of this B2B Prospecting Map template to draft a potential outreach workflow vs. different stakeholders (you won’t have edit access as this is a public template).