You’ve likely seen the recent Gartner study that shows how buyers are spending an increasing amount of time doing research before purchasing or even engaging with sales.

Buyers Are Researching Solutions Independently

If you haven’t, let me be the first to share that 83% of a B2B buyer’s time on average is spent conducting independent research, from searching for information online to attending events and speaking with peers.

This makes our job as sellers increasingly difficult, as we often have to overcome buyers’ pre-conceived ideas about what their best solution or options are. As a result, sales today is about Strategic Information Distribution (SID).

During a recent talk with sales executives in Tampa, I shared that if we want to sell more in today’s market, we need to focus on strategically sharing information using the following steps:

1. Recognize what channels our buyers use to research our products or services.
2. Invest time engaging in and participating in these various channels.
3. Be provocative when sharing information to stand out amongst our competition.

Buyer Research Channels: Attend, Interact With & Influence Prospects

We should meet our buyers where they are:

• If they’re active in online forums, we should be there too, sharing valuable insights and examples.
• If they attend specific events to learn, we need to participate or speak at those events.
• And if they seldom leave their office, we should bring samples and examples directly to them.

Focusing on SID requires we become laser-focused on where our buyers spend their time researching. We need to ensure that we participate, stand out, and offer value in these places repeatedly.