Last week, we talked about Jean Piaget. This week, it’s Socrates and personal agency. This is what happens when you ask a former Liberal Arts professor to explain B2B selling.
Does Socrates matter for B2B sales? Absolutely.
After all, if the world’s biggest and best consumer goods companies couldn’t sell something as simple as cake mix without considering the critical importance of a Socratic approach to cooking, why in the world would we think it’s possible to sell complex B2B solutions to large buying groups without considering the critical importance of a Socratic approach to organizational decision making?
If anything, the world of B2B buying is a world even more fraught with the complexities of human interaction and individual self-perception, not less.
Yet, in our rush to make buying decisions “easier” and “more convenient,” we often overlook the far greater value of ensuring customers’ personal agency first.
Bottom line, our bigger opportunity in B2B sales today isn’t so much to simplify decision making nearly so much as to empower it.
