About the Book

How Customers Buy and Why They Don't book cover

Available in Hard Back
$29.95 in the US
C$39.99 in Canada

This meticulously researched and well written book is refreshing and insightful. Simply put, if you want to be more successful in building your business, read this book!
Tim Hoerr
TIM HOERR, CEO & MANAGING PARTNER
Serra Ventures
Turns out, its not about selling any more. It’s about buying. This book is going to be a seminal work in the evolution of commercial success in the early part of the 21st century.
SCOTT C. LEWIS
CEO Roundtable

How Customers Buy...& Why They Don’t

Mapping and Managing the Buying Journey DNA

In business, nothing happens until somebody buys something. And so, if – as Peter Drucker has stated – the purpose of a company is to create a customer, then How Customers Buy…and Why They Don’t, by Martyn R. Lewis, should be mandatory reading for anyone whose livelihood depends on somebody buying something. The overarching principle of this revelatory book is nothing less than a thorough and logical redefinition of business strategy and is firmly founded on the author’s groundbreaking concept of Outside-In Revenue Generation.

Drawing on his decades of experience and research, Mr. Lewis essentially blows away the notion of “better mousetraps” winning the day, along with the time-worn sales processes abetting those endeavors. He clearly shows that the very foundation upon which most companies go to market is perilously outdated for today’s business environment.  The author makes the compelling argument that selling entities must look beyond their own internal view of how something is sold, to the external reality of how customers actually buy. He asserts that no one buys anything because of a sales process; customers only buy because of their own buying journey.

It is the author’s well-founded belief that the simple failure of mousetrap logic is at the heart of most revenue generation challenges today. He will show that vendors are too often trying to solve the wrong problem, because time and time again their customers actually do “get it”. They understand the offering, they truly believe in the value they would gain as a result of acquiring and adopting it, and yet they hesitate and/or fail to buy. Why then do buyers not take advantage of an offering of undeniable quality supported by a seemingly guaranteed ROI? The author will show that the answer to this conundrum lies not in how vendors sell, but in deeply understanding exactly how customers buy, and more importantly why they don’t. And so to those who must survive and prosper in today’s marketplace, the only rational course of action is to positively influence and effectively manage the end-to-end Customer Buying Journey.

Based on over fifteen years of research that included looking at over 1,200 organizations and in-depth interviews with more than 2,000 individuals, How Customers Buy…and Why They Don’t uncovers the significant and expensive gap between how companies try to sell, and how customers actually buy. Over this time, Mr. Lewis initiated and fine-tuned his methodology of mapping the end-to-end buying process; in effect decoding the “DNA” of the Customer Buying Journey. Using these methods, the author went on to map scores of buying journeys for a wide variety of clients.

Which led to the second major finding; that although customers don’t behave in what would seem to be a logical manner, they do behave in a predictable one. He found that organizations within a specific market, when faced with buying a particular offering, behave in a remarkably similar way. They share a common buying journey with a common buying DNA. This led to the revelations that are fully shared and detailed in this book.

The Book Has Three Parts

Part 1 of How Customers Buy…and Why They Don’t, introduces and illuminates the concept of Outside-in Revenue Generation. It decodes the six strands of the Customer Buying Journey DNA. It defines the nine Buying Concerns, any one of which can derail a purchase. It unveils the deceptively simple and elegant 4Q Buying Style Quadrant that unlocks the intricacies of how buyers actually think. Included are two highly detailed case studies with full analytics to vividly illustrate how one company embraced a new approach in sales and marketing based upon knowing how their customers buy, and another company that did not.

Part 2 then takes all that has gone before and discusses “What to Do About It”. This section rests on the major premise of “Changing the Course of Events”, wherein the author reveals that there are only four things – his Sales & Marketing Imperatives – that can be done to positively impact the market. After close scrutiny of those four imperatives, the author then turns to their practical application in the development of the Market Engagement Strategy and will cover the five essential elements contained within.

Part 3 then translates the Market Engagement Strategy into actual sales and marketing actions. It will follow the four Sales Imperatives and their impact on all aspects of revenue generation. The author introduces the CBJ Navigator™, a powerful and comprehensive tool for facilitating all aspects of Outside-In Revenue Generation. The book then concludes with an epilogue – a short and concise summary of how customers buy…and why they don’t.

Whether you are in an executive management position, an entrepreneur, an investor, a marketer or a sales person, How Customers Buy…and Why They Don’t delivers a profound and persuasive argument that those involved in revenue generation need to hear. And this argument is not just a theoretical wish list – it is well tested. Mr. Lewis’s work has been used across 44 countries, in 17 languages, and has impacted over 85,000 sales professionals. Companies from start-ups to industry giants have put these approaches into practice, and the results speak consistently and profitably for themselves.

Armed with such understanding gleaned from this book, any organization can move beyond the incessant fine-tuning of their product presentation, to professionally managing the entire Customer Buying Journey within their given market.

100% of the royalties on all pre-order and first week sales will be donated to the Sonoma Resilience Fund, and thereafter 25% of royalties from the first printing of the book will be donated to them as well.

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