We worked with a global client dedicated to digital technology consulting six months ago. Their CEO and CSO told us that their professionals had a high level of conversational mastery and adapted their messages to the unique situations of their prospects and clients. Shortly after, we presented the diagnosis results, and they were highly surprised since 90% of their professionals were saying practically the same, in the same sequence and cadence.

The current pressures and demands from B2B clients to generate revenue and grow require a deep understanding of the psychology of the modern buyer. Prior to this, it is imperative to comprehend the nature of commercial interactions in two critical moments: Customer Acquisition and Customer Expansion.

Customer Acquisition is crucially very different from Customer Expansion

In the infographic, we can identify the questions that buyers ask themselves in these different relational moments. Understanding that, during Acquisition, customers ask: ‘Why change?’; ‘Why now?’; ‘Why with you?’ leads to the realization that the seller’s arguments, inquiry, and persuasion are very different from the situation where the customer is in the Expansion stage and asks: ‘Why stay?’; ‘Why pay more?’; ‘Why evolve?’

“Your conversations should create a competitive advantage, providing messages that demonstrate the convenience of staying, the cost of changing, and elevate the value of engaging with you and your company”.

In Acquisition, what is necessary to win a new client by generating a disruptive, challenging conversation that destabilize comfort and resistance to change (status quo), is entirely counterproductive for Expansion, i.e., when we aim to grow within an existing client, renew contracts, and extend them.

In Expansion, your company is the new status quo, and to address the client’s questions about why to stay or invest more, it is appropriate to adopt a ‘defensive’ approach. Your conversations should create a competitive advantage, providing messages that demonstrate the convenience of staying, the cost of changing, and elevate the value of engaging with you and your company.