It is mission critical for today's B2B marketers to explore and understand the buying processes in play with their customer personas and individual customers.

Let's look at what is meant by a customer buying process. A customer buying process describes the ways in which a customer arrives from a position of unawareness to participation in a customer loyalty and referral program  that should follow a sale. Buying processes have been described in a number of different ways, but each of those extant seem to capture some notion of the customer's first engagement by coming to an awareness of a pain - something that is preventing her/him from achieving desired outcomes or self-actualization in their work. From this state emerges a desire or need, which then often prompts a scanning behaviour to identify solution options. Ultimately, an approach to a solution emerges from the efforts of the scan, and customers face a critical point where the either back off (because their analysis suggests the solution won't fully address the need, or there is a poor return on investment) or engage further. Further engagement usually means looking at "brand choice" - or which solution or product will best fit the customer's needs. And here, the emotional train started with the recognition of pain and desire/need continues down its track - not much of most solution selection activities is very rational or logical, according to reliable studies across many verticals. A "best option" is selected, the prospect becomes a customer or client, and buyer regret many then come into play; this may be mitigated largely by positive experiences with the solution provider through things like a loyalty or retention program, which can then amplify word of mouth and create buzz.

Lots of nuances in those basics. But one should be standing out - buyers are in the driver's chair. No longer can we force a "marketing and sales process" that doesn't celebrate the role of the buyer and place them at the centre of all efforts.

There is, of course, this tradition that clever and/or aggressive marketing can prompt a sale. And I'm here to argue that this notion of reflective of the Mad Men age - and that said model has been broken for some time. Push marketing - in all of its myriad complexity and with a long legacy of refinements - has largely gone over the cliff. As marketers, we can push our messages out to clients til we are collectively a pretty shade of teal - and if it has only been about us and the "product choice", we've influenced very little. Because this approach just doesn't capture most potential buyers where they are - which is quite a bit downstream, in early stages (if at all) of the buying process.

In his book "Digital Body Language", Steven Woods intelligently captures this idea: "Of course, as we know, prospects are not necessarily driven by marketing messages, but by their own internal needs".  Uh-huh!  And so the role of marketing today - in a global, commoditized, at your fingertips market - is to work within the buyer's frame of reference, recognizing that what we must do is embrace our prospects with an effect "web" or "cloud" of influence.  This web:

1. Helps prospects realize they have "pain" (very important!);
2. Advises that pain can be treated;
3. Meets buyer needs for information about solutions where they look (increasingly, the web);
4. Supports contrasting the available solutions/options in a balanced way;
5. Suggests interactions with the sales team at appropriate times.

All of this speaks to being both supportive of individual potential customers in their individualized journey to buy. And this should speak loudly to us that our efforts must become a lot less "linear" - akin to the on-demand learning style so embodied by Millennials.

Today's successful marketers - and those who will have jobs in the near-future! - think about ecosystems and clouds of support, and less about closing and collateral. They think about launching problems, not products. It requires new skills, including greater data savvy and more inclination towards listening. It changes roles and relationships between "marketing" and "sales". It relies more on technologies that are social.  It invokes "event-driven tactics".  It is a fundamental evolution of marketing - marketing reloaded.