Walk a Mile in Your Buyer's Shoes: Why Taking a Buyer's Perspective Will Transform Your Prospecting

Ever felt like your prospecting attempts are hitting a wall? We've all been there. The secret? Turn the tables. Stop thinking like a seller and start feeling like a buyer.

This week, Mark Savinson invites you to walk in your buyers' shoes: Flip your approach from product pitches to full-on empathy mode. When you double down on what really matters to your buyers, you:

• boost your credibility 

• build lasting trust 

• open doors to long-term relationships

And let’s be honest, nobody wants to be that pushy salesperson. Instead, think of yourself as a trusted advisor – who doesn’t love those? 

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The problem: we're solving for the wrong person

“Cold-calling is dead”, “Digital outreach is more effective”, “It’s all about mindset and effort.” Too much sales prospecting advice is laser focused on the seller's challenges. This misses a glaringly obvious fact—buyers control the process. They hold the budgets we're all scrambling to access, they place the orders, and they're the ones we actually want to help.

What is true is that enterprise buying has become increasingly complex. Don't take my word for it—a 2023 Forrester report found that 61% of enterprise buyers describe their decision process as overwhelming. Understanding their reality is essential for effective prospecting.

Buying—through the lens of the buyer

Imagine stepping into the buyer's shoes, really understanding what makes them tick. Here's what we discover:

• 71% of B2B buyers are now Millennials or Gen Z.

• They want a digital first experience when it comes to research.

• They make participatory buying decisions, hence the growth of the Buying Room.

• They expect a seamless experience from initial outreach through to delivery and support.

• Procurement departments are driving data based decisions.

• Buyers rely heavily on trust and social proof, such as peer reviews, case studies, analyst reports, and referrals.

• They want solutions that demonstrate clear business value with measurable impact.

What does this mean for prospecting?

Define your target market with precision

Focus is the key word here—you need real clarity to create truly compelling messages.

• Focus on sectors where you have proven success and can demonstrate impact

• Identify specific role personas within your target accounts

• Refer to relevant business risks and opportunities supported by data (explain why they should change from their current services/solutions)

• Determine whether you're expanding share-of-wallet with existing customers or acquiring new accounts

Arm your team with competitive intelligence

For scalable prospecting, ensure your sales team has digital access to the insights that turn conversations into connections:

• Relevant market insights and trends

• Customer-level intelligence and buying committee information

• Compelling stories that transform insights into meaningful conversations

• Digital-first content that sponsors can easily share with colleagues

The right prospects may not be who you think they are

Focus on organizations that haven't yet identified their budget, specific needs, or solution requirements. Although this appears counterintuitive, engaging prospects early in their buying journey provides maximum influence. 

Think about it: when buyers have already completed their research and defined what they think they want, you're simply competing to transact—they're ready to buy, but you have minimal influence.

Create awareness through broad outreach

Use marketing to highlight risks and opportunities that encourage prospects to reconsider their current solutions. This creates the foundation for those meaningful conversations we're all after.

Once Marketing has started to create awareness, now your “prospecting" activities can begin.

Prospecting with a Buyer’s Perspective (step-by-step)

By really taking the time to see things from the buyer's viewpoint, every interaction becomes an opportunity to craft a story together.

1. Initial outreach

Target prospects with specific, relevant insights about why their company should consider change. The objective isn't pitching—it's starting a conversation where prospects discover they need to do something different. You're no longer just pushing products; you're collaborating on solutions.

2. Build internal champions

Help your contact become a champion within their buying committee. Provide insights and tools they can use to build consensus for change, even when you're not present. When this consensus emerges, you have a qualified lead who understands both the need for change and its quantifiable impact.

3. Define solution criteria

Shift focus to helping qualified leads discover what they need to implement change effectively. Guide them in defining solution criteria that will deliver their desired outcomes. This transforms leads into prospects who are genuinely engaged.

4. Create forecastable opportunities

Help prospects determine who can best deliver their defined solution criteria. Only now do you enter the salesperson's familiar territory—this is the first time you can actually talk about your company and offerings. We've left the world of prospecting and entered traditional selling (though it still requires those same prospecting skills).

How not to waste time on “prospects” where there is no opportunity

Move beyond seller-focused qualification

Traditional qualification focuses on finding prospects who can buy now and meet your ideal customer requirements. But here's the thing—good understanding of your target market should pre-address the focus on ideal customers.

Adopt buyer-focused discovery

Help buyers discover:

• Compelling reasons to change - share relevant insights demonstrating commercial impact

• Solution criteria - collaborate using insights to build a business case for required changes

How does this differ from the traditional approach?

Think of yourself as a trusted advisor.

• Focus on what you want the Buyer to Discover when you speak to them, not what you want to tell prospects about your solution.

• Instead of leading with product features and benefits, you've pre-planned specific market insights and business impacts that will help prospects recognize their need for change.

• Research enough to create value - you demonstrate that you already understand their market challenges and opportunities.

• Follow the principle: "Know something about the customer or market you can share, verify that the customer agrees with your impact statement, ask the things you cannot possibly know without speaking to people"

• You secure commitments that empower the buyer to move forward, not that advance your sales process.

Making prospecting universal

Prospecting is simply conversations about market changes and their impact on existing solutions. Everyone should prospect—it's about opening doors to long-term relationships, not just closing deals.

A transformed prospecting experience

Prospecting is often a daunting activity for salespeople. It's associated with rejection and knockbacks. But poor prospecting is also an annoyance for individuals within your target customers who are being interrupted by salespeople who just want to talk about themselves and their "awesome solutions."

Taking a buyer's perspective doesn't eliminate interruptions, but it offers valuable conversations that encourage further engagement. Prospects know you ultimately want to sell something, but you're starting by focusing on how you can help, not what you're selling.

While buyers may avoid sales engagement until 50% through their buying process, they actively seek support in identifying why to change and what that change should look like. When you provide this guidance and influence their thinking early, you have a 70% chance of converting that conversation into business.

The shift from seller-focused to buyer-focused prospecting transforms interruptions into valuable exchanges, rejection into engagement, and suspects into qualified opportunities. This not only leads to better outcomes for you but also means the buyer leaves satisfied, perhaps even singing your praises down the road.

Ready for your prospecting makeover?

So, if you're ready to flip the script, here's your invitation to act. Next time you're planning that outreach, pause and ponder this: what would I want if I were them?

When you truly walk a mile in your buyer's shoes, prospecting stops being about finding the right key for an unknown lock—it becomes about building the door together. And if you're looking for a little nudge or guidance on diving deeper into this buyer-centric ocean, we’re just a call away.