« The Buyer’s Balance – What your customers want to share with you »: Interview with Bert PAESBRUGGHE
02/20/2025
4 min
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Professor Bert PAESBRUGGE from IÉSEG has recently written a new book “The Buyer’s Balance – What your customers want to share with you” (Owl Press, Borgerhoff & Lamberigts), which is targeted at people working in B2B sales.
In this interview, he speaks about the reasons for writing this new publication and how sales managers can foster better relationships with buyers.
What prompted you to write this new book?
My PhD dissertation (2017) is titled ‘Salespeople are from Mars, Purchasers are from Venus: Matching Sales to Purchasing’, where I made an analogy to the book ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus – A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships’ (Gray, 1992). Gray highlights ways to improve communication between men and women and concludes that it is all about listening to the other person’s needs and relating to what the partner values as important. Partners can have totally different needs – that is okay.
A relationship between two partners and a business relationship between a buyer and a selling company share many similarities. Any strong relationship, such as with a close family member, life partner or best friend, is built on trust, on understanding that the other person might be different, on learning how to deal with those differences and on the idea that you want to grow together. Different kinds of relationships also exist. Some might last forever, and others may just be temporary – again, similar to business relationships.
As with any type of relationship, the art is in maintaining it. What happens to your friends when you break promises to meet up? What happens when you neglect ‘points of improvement’? It harms the relationship. When the relationship is harmed too often (or deeply), a (business) breakup may occur.
With my new book, I’m not trying to be your B2B relationship counsellor. I want to be the messenger that shows that buyers are not difficult to work with. You only need to know how, or as ChatGPT would say, ‘Unlock the relationship’. The relationship might be locked, but if you use the right key and a bit of oil, you might just find out that your buyer is more open than you think.
Ultimately, it is the customers who dictate the balance of the relationship. They pay the invoices, and without them, business does not exist. This is why understanding and maintaining the buyer’s balance is critical to long-term relationships. I explain why companies should make time to take action, prioritise customer relationships and ensure that balance remains at the center of your strategy. It is easier than it sounds.
You focus on the question of balance (in terms of relationships, strategy etc.): why is this so important for sales managers today?
This is not a spiritual book, unless you want to understand the spirit of your buyer better. However, I would like to share the following analogy: For many people, the most important things in life are health, well-being, relationships, purpose, personal growth, happiness, and contentment. B2B relationships show many similarities to personal relationships. It is important to monitor the quality of the business relationship (customer health), continuously improve relationships with different stakeholders within the customer’s firm, and understand their purpose and where they want to grow.
Relationships are built, not imposed. Building strong (business) relationships requires communication, showing up, keeping promises and refraining from being opportunistic. Creating healthy relationships is based on a balance of power, knowledge management, and go-to-market strategy. Although you may wish to steer this balance, it is best to follow the preferences of the buyer first. Thus, understanding balance is what creates healthy relationships. How to find balance? This is like asking how to find happiness. You cannot search for it; you can only prepare building blocks that increase the chances of reaching a balance.
Could you give some key takeaways for sales managers everywhere?
Many sales strategies or customer experience strategies require sales organizations to do more. Examples include trying to delight customers every single time, while this is a mistake. It is about consistently delivering on the expected value. Improving customer relationships is not a destination but a continuous journey. It is like marriage. Once you think you are set, you might lose it all. Taking any relationship for granted is a mistake. Keep it up. Keeping a good business relationship healthy is far easier than revamping a customer relationship that is destroyed. Once the machine is oiled and running, keep it running. Maintain it. Don’t let anyone put sand in it.
I hope that the main message of this book is clear: when you are only chasing the latest trends and trying to keep up with the latest business lingo, you might overlook what really counts: a balanced relationship with your buyer. Many speakers, books and articles state that buyers have completely changed. I disagree. Buyers evolve rather slowly, continuously and steadily.
When you measure their needs regularly, you will see small changes with which you can catch up. If you don’t measure them for a longer time, you will notice huge changes. It is like with most functions in an organization – for example, the finance department, customer support or even operations. Yes, changes are happening, but when you look at the foundations of each function, the changes are marginal. All functions are evolving over time.
This book is all about simplifying the buzz around customer centricity and customer value. These are the five foundations of a customer-centric mindset that I would highlight as key takeaways:
- Deliver customer value in a consistent way.
- Measure the customer needs regularly.
- Organise your sales organisation around these customer needs and continuously improve where needed.
- Work on the things that will be valuable for the customer over a longer period of time.
- Change is a given.
Find our more about this book – which is targeted at people working in B2B Sales – in this article.
