Define How Potential Buyers Will Find You and Make a Decision to Buy
Now that your team knows who to sell to, they need to understand how those buyers actually make a decision to buy from you.
In B2B sales, we call this the Customer Journey.
It’s the path your potential customer takes from the moment they realise they have a problem, to choosing who they will pay to solve it, to knowing whether or not it actually worked.
If your sales team doesn’t understand how buyers think, they’ll pitch too early, chase the wrong deals, and lose momentum when buyers stall. But when your team knows the steps buyers go through, they can:
- Show up at the right time with the right message
- Stand out against competitors
- Guide the buyer to a clear decision faster
Customer’s Journey Framework
The easiest way to learn your customer’s journey is to ask your existing customers.
Use this simple Customer Journey Framework to guide the conversation. It’s structured around the 4 key stages a B2B buyer goes through:
Awareness
Ask: “Before you found us, what were the top 3 challenges or pains you were facing?”
You want to understand what problems were frustrating or slowing them down, what made them start looking.
Consideration
Ask: “What were the top 3 options you considered when trying to solve that problem?”
This helps you learn:
- Who or what you’re competing with (other products, internal workarounds, consultants, etc.)
- What makes your solution stand out or get ignored
Decision
Ask: “What were the top 3 things you were looking for in a solution before making a final decision?”
These are your buyer’s key decision criteria — price, ease of use, speed to value, local support, integrations, etc. Your team should know this cold.
Success
Ask: “What are the top 3 ways you planned to measure if the solution worked?”
This tells you what success means to them — and helps you align your pitch, onboarding, and follow-up to deliver that outcome.
Once you have this information, document it:
- Use it to train your team on what buyers are really thinking at each stage
- Adjust your messaging, content, and demos to match buyer expectations
- Share stories of customers who had similar pains, considered the same options, and succeeded using your product