We’re on Module 3 of the 2024 Stage 2 Capital Catalyst Curriculum, and this time, we dig deep into the art of sales. Mandy Cole led a discussion on understanding the buyer journey in order to create effective go-to-market playbooks that scale.
This is a great followup to our previous two modules:
- Product-Market Fit with Mark Roberge, focusing on retention, usage, and early customer success
- Go-to-Market Fit with Jay Po and Anu Maheshwari, focusing on scalable unit economics
Mandy underscored that, once a startup moves from product-market fit to scaling its go-to-market (GTM) strategy, one of the most important steps is creating a GTM Playbook in order to operationalize and execute a consistent, coordinated sales and marketing strategy. She noted that while playbooks aren’t one-size-fits-all, creating one that’s adaptable to the company’s situation and market is key.
GTM Playbooks usually include:
- Buyer journey mapping: the buyer journey from awareness through purchase and post-purchase.
- Target market definition: the ideal customer profile (ICP), buyer personas, and segments that are most likely to benefit from the product.
- Positioning and messaging: the unique value proposition (UVP) that differentiates the product from competitors and resonates with the target audience.
- Sales strategy and tactics: sales funnel, scripts and messaging, lead qualification criteria, and closing strategies.
- Marketing strategy and tactics: marketing channels, campaigns, and tactics to generate leads and awareness.
- Pricing: details on pricing structures that align with the market and customer expectations.
- Enablement and training: the tools, content, and training sales and customer success need to communicate effectively with prospects and close deals.
- Competitive analysis: mapping out how to position against competitors.
The first and most important step is mapping out the buyer journey. Why?
- Mapping the buyer journey gives startups a clear view of the entire sales process from awareness to decision.
- It enables founders to identify customer pain points, motivations, and objections.
- VCs often look for this level of market understanding when evaluating startups.
As founders, you’ve spent considerable time understanding your customers’ pain points—the very reason you built your product. Every company should understand who their buyer is, their role in the purchasing process, and the steps they take to become aware of and evaluate solutions like yours.
The buyer journey maps out:
- Awareness: What are the buyer’s top 3 challenges or goals?
- Considerations: What other solutions are they investigating?
- Decision: What criteria will they use to evaluate the solutions they’re considering?
- Success: How will the buyer measure success?
With a deep understanding of these factors, you can operationalize this knowledge into a go-to-market playbook to distill and codify the most efficient steps into a process that’s scalable and repeatable (think ramping up new hires).
Here are two Buyer Journey examples from Stage 2 Portfolio companies:
MedScout is a sales enablement tool for medical device companies. Their buyers are often medical device sales teams who need to know where specific procedures are happening so they can target the right doctors and hospitals.
Here’s how MedScout mapped out their buyers' challenges:
- Awareness: sales teams need information on which doctors are performing procedures relevant to their product.
- Consideration: buyers are exploring how to get this data—either from MedScout or other sources.
- Decision-making: these buyers care about the accuracy of the data and how easily it can be used to optimize their sales territories.
- Success: demonstrating improved sales outcomes tied to the data MedScout provides.
During the mapping process, MedScout realized the importance of understanding where they don't solve a customer’s problems. They recognized there were certain types of data that their tool didn’t provide. By building disqualifiers into the playbook, MedScout reps could ask the right questions to ensure they were focusing on customers who were a strong fit for their product.
Another example from the Stage 2 portfolio is Prequel, a company that helps online businesses provide custom data back to their customers. Their buyers, often e-commerce or SaaS companies, struggle to understand their own customers' needs due to a lack of actionable data. Prequel mapped out the key challenges these companies face: how to gather and analyze customer data efficiently.
They also identified certain criteria that would make a prospect a poor fit. For example, if a company has other priorities that push data analytics into a future project, Prequel would deprioritize them, saving time and resources by not pursuing a prospect that isn't ready to buy.
Both MedScout and Prequel demonstrate the importance of mapping the buyer journey to pinpoint not only opportunities but also disqualifiers. By recognizing when a customer isn’t a good fit, they ensure their sales teams focus on the most valuable prospects, reducing wasted effort and increasing their chances of success.
What Happens When the Buyer Journey Includes Different Personas?
Early-stage companies often learn new information about their customers in real time, making it necessary to adjust their approach as they gather more insights.
The buyer journey map should be dynamic and adaptable, especially when you're targeting more than one buyer persona.
Mandy shared an example of a company that was struggling with this exact issue. “This HR tech startup initially targeted HR departments and saw strong early engagement. However, deals were getting stuck in the pipeline. They discovered that while the HR teams were users of the product, the finance departments were ultimately responsible for signing off on benefits-related decisions.”
By mapping the journey for both the HR and finance personas, and developing a playbook that accounted for both, the company was able to adapt its process, and conversion rates improved dramatically.
It’s essential to create a buyer journey for each persona involved in the decision-making process. This ensures that your messaging, positioning, and overall strategy are aligned with the unique challenges and needs of each stakeholder.
- As you map these personas, tie their specific challenges and motivations to your elevator pitch.
- Focus less on what your product does and more on what problems it solves.
- When creating buyer journeys, remember to keep the process dynamic. Don’t over complicate the map, but also ensure you’re capturing enough detail to adjust your strategy as you learn more.
Mapping the Buyer Journey Starts and Ends with Listening
One of the key lessons for early-stage startup founders is the critical role of listening to your customers.
Mandy referenced a famous study by Gong that showed that top-performing sales reps spend 43% of a call talking and 57% of a call listening to their customers. Effective, modern sales teams take a consultative approach, focusing on listening to customer pain points and determining whether their solution is even the right fit.
As a founder, your goal is to adopt this approach early. In your buyer journey mapping, the first step is understanding your customer’s motivations. How did they become aware of their challenge? Why are they interested in your solution? What other problems are they facing?
By listening carefully, you can build a go-to-market playbook that supports the buyer through their buying process—not just your sales process.
The GTM Playbook: Putting the Buyer Journey In Action
Once you understand the journey from your buyer’s perspective, you can develop a playbook that meets buyers where they’re at, at every stage of the process.
For every stage of the process, a GTM Playbook should include:
- Talking points or a script
- A sales process with defined stages and criteria
- CRM/technology instructions
Let’s take a look at one section of the Playbook - the Discovery Guide.
Empowering Sales to Master the Discovery Call
Mandy emphasized the importance of the Discovery Call in the GTM Playbook—the most essential step in moving a prospect from awareness of their problem to consideration of the solution you’re offering.
Why the Discovery Call Matters
In a startup environment, resources are precious and limited. Pursuing unqualified prospects can drain valuable time and energy that could be better spent on potential customers who are a good fit. That's why the Discovery Call is crucial: it’s not just about presenting your product; it’s about delving deep into the buyer's current situation and understanding their challenges.
The Discovery Call section of the playbook should include key questions such as:
- What problems are they currently facing?
- How are they attempting to solve these issues?
- What impact does their inability to resolve these challenges have on their business?
By exploring these questions, you can gain insights into whether the prospect aligns with your offering and tailor your follow-up actions accordingly.
The insights gained during the Discovery Call allow you to customize future demonstrations of your product. By understanding the specific pain points and objectives of your prospects, you can frame your product features as solutions to their challenges.
Pro Tip: Focus on Active Listening
Top-performing sales reps excel at building rapport and asking open-ended questions. They steer the conversation to uncover insights rather than relying on surface-level questions.
For example, instead of asking, “Are you using X?” consider asking, “What are the strengths and weaknesses of your current solution?”
5 Tactics to Help You Navigate Discovery Calls with Multiple Buyer Personas
It’s common to encounter multiple buyer personas in a single Discovery Call or demo. If you’ve already mapped out the buyer journey for each persona, you’ll be in a great position to effectively manage this dynamic.
- Set the agenda in advance
When preparing for a Discovery Call that includes multiple personas, it’s essential to establish a clear agenda. One effective strategy is to send an agenda email prior to the call. Recap previous discussions, highlight identified challenges, and outline the goals of the upcoming call. For example:
Subject: Recap and Agenda for Our Upcoming Call
Body: “Hi Team, it was great speaking with [Initial Contact] last time. Here are the key challenges we discussed and the goals we hope to achieve in our next conversation. I’d love to hear if there are any additional points you’d like to ensure we cover.”
By proactively sharing this information with all participants, you foster transparency and prepare everyone for a more effective discussion.
- Engaging multiple perspectives on the call
Take the time to acknowledge each participant individually. Begin with a brief recap of the previous discussion and then invite input from the new attendees. This approach not only makes everyone feel valued but also helps to surface any additional challenges or perspectives that might not have been previously considered.
- Stay organized
Keep the agenda in mind, and ensure that discussions don’t veer off into unrelated areas. By guiding the dialogue and making sure each persona has a chance to contribute, you can create a balanced discussion that addresses the needs of all stakeholders.
- Follow up—fast
Immediately after the call, send out a summary email that highlights key points discussed, decisions made, and next steps. This reinforces clarity among all participants and keeps everyone aligned as you move forward in the sales process.
Securing follow-up calls with potential buyers can often be a challenge due to their busy schedules. Know your champion; this is the person who advocates for your solution within the organization. You’ll also need to identify other key decision-makers who should join subsequent calls.
- Establish a clear cadence
When scheduling follow-up calls, define a structured cadence. Instead of trying to cover everything in one call, consider spreading discussions over multiple sessions:
- Discovery call: Establish challenges and gather insights from the primary contact.
- First demo call: Tailor this session based on the insights gathered, ensuring to highlight specific use cases that resonate with the buyers’ pain points.
- Follow-up calls: Schedule additional sessions to address specific concerns or involve other key stakeholders as necessary.
This approach not only breaks down the information into digestible parts but also keeps the buyers engaged and invested in the process.
After Discovery: Customize Your Presentation
After the discovery phase, ensure that your demo is tailored to the unique challenges highlighted during previous conversations. Focus on two or three key use cases that align with what the buyer cares about most.
For instance, instead of showing every feature of your product, concentrate on how it can solve specific problems:
- Quick overview: Start with a brief recap of the buyer's challenges and how your solution aligns with their needs.
- Focused demos: Present features that directly address their pain points, engaging them by asking questions like, “Does this make sense for your situation?” and “Can you see how this could benefit your organization?”
By keeping the demo interactive, you can gauge their engagement and understanding, making it easier to address any objections in real time.