Your customer’s journey

The seven stations on every customer’s journey

Are you helping, hurting, or ignoring them?

Over the last ten years of weekly blog articles and podcast episodes, the focus has mostly been on improving your selling process. I think it’s important to spend a few minutes discussing the buying process that your customers go through. It’s appropriately called the “Customer’s Journey”. It’s their journey to becoming your customer. It’s also their journey when they decide to stop being your customer.

This journey has seven stations or stops along the way. The visual below helps to understand them.

How to use the Customer Journey:

At first glance, you might think this is something for the VP of Marketing to spend time figuring out and planning elaborate marketing campaigns. That is a great use for it, but as a salesperson, you have the opportunity to find out how these seven steps are navigated by real customers in your territory. It’s a powerful tool for both current customers and prospects.

For current customers, you can discover how your best customers navigate the buying process. Their candid answers about how they buy can shape your sales approach and provide valuable feedback to the marketing team. You have the trusted insight into how your loyal customers become loyal customers.

When you start asking your customers the questions below, you are going to see patterns and learn more about your best customers. These patterns shape your sales approach into a more effective style.

The discovery process:

Sit down with a subset of your customers. Select your best and most representative group of customers. Maybe this is your 2,000-acre growers, your 1,000 cow dairy producers, or your $100,000 accounts. Whatever customer segment represents your ideal customer or target market.

Now, ask for an hour of their time to dig into these seven steps with them. Since they are customers of your product line, you can ask these questions in two ways. First, you can ask them about how they became your customer. Or, you can ask them about how they became a loyal customer of similar product lines to yours. For example, hiring a nutritionist, agronomist, or lender is similar in nature. You can ask the questions below about how they go through the process of buying consultant services.

Station 1: Awareness:

How do you become aware of new products and services in our industry? In this local area?
Who or what is the most helpful in helping you find new products?
Who or what is the most trusted source of information?

Station 2: Investigate:

Once you become aware of a product, service, or company, how do you find out information about them?
Of those products you become aware of, how do you decide to investigate or search for more information about them?

Station 3: Consider

There are many products and services that you become aware of and investigate. What factors, features, or benefits do you consider when trying new ones?
Who do you consult with internally or externally to help you consider a new product? Said another way. Who has been your best resource for considering new products?

Station 4: Test

When you finally try a new product in your operation, how does that work?
Do you try it on a small subset of acres, animals, etc.? Or do you switch the entire operation over?
Do you do side by side trials?

Station 5: Decide:

What factors go into making a decision to switch to a new product? Their first response to this question might be around financial or production yields (saves money, we get more bushels, increased milk yield, etc.)
Beyond those aspects, how do you value time saved?
What about the grayer areas of emotional value? Such as reduced frustration for employees, reduced safety risk, or reduced risk (fear) in any part of their operation?

Station 6: Loyalty

Which vendors in your operation have you bought from the longest?
What is it about them or their products that kept you there for so long?
If they reveal that they were with one supplier for a long time but then switched, it is a great subject to dig into. For example, you know this farm has been in operation for 100 years. They tell you that they have only been with their agronomist for the last two years. It is important to uncover who they were with previously and for how long. Why did they switch?

Station 7: Advocate

The last and most effective station to help you in your selling process is called “The Advocate”. This is when they go out of their way to advocate for you as a supplier. They tell their peers about you and your company. This can show up in many ways. It could be online posts by them where they advocate for a product. Maybe they allow a brand to quote them in the media as an advocate. It might be wearing branded clothing items. Although that might just mean a sales rep dropped them off, and they wear free items. It might be in conversations you have had with them.
Ask, “How do you decide to recommend a product or service to your peers?”
Who or what was the last company you recommended another producer to use?
Have you ever referred a peer to use our company?

After several of these interview discussions, you are going to see a pattern. This pattern is your guide to approaching prospects.

Sit down with your sales manager or marketing person. Try to uncover which of these stations are strong points for you and your company. Also, try to uncover the weaker stations where you are losing prospects. For example, if you have hundreds or thousands who visit your online marketing, inquire about your products, reach out by phone, or stop into your business, but only a handful that test out your products, then you know where you need to focus on the Customer Journey. You need to understand what is happening after they become aware of you, investigate your products, and consider you against the competition. Why are they not trying out your products?

This may seem like a difficult or overly involved process. However, every minute spent here is worth it when you approach prospects in your territory. You have a much better understanding of how they purchase and become loyal customers. You understand what they value and what they don’t. You can save time and resources on where you focus your efforts on being a better salesperson.

All the best in your efforts to become an Ag sales professional