Executing B2B Sales just needs the right mastery.
While every representative has the subconscious desire to increase sales numbers, one can’t just push any product to customers, and tell them to purchase it.
You need to follow step by step procedure with a comprehensive approach and be on the right track.
As we see in the below image, the process includes prospecting, approach, Lead Qualification, presentation, handling objections, and follow-up. It helps streamline the process and reach the target.
source: hubspot.com
This also shows like other processes, B2B sales is just not about selling. You need to maintain a good relationship with your future customers by handling their queries and providing them with the right answer. Also, one needs to follow up with customers at the right time, presenting them with the best features of the product or service.
Sales productivity is more important than other management areas:
source: process.st
Types of B2B Sales Process:
- Product-based sales: It requires representative to promote the features and functionality of the product.
- Service-based sales: Promote the Quality of the service
- Software sales: Require customers to subscribe to the service.
10 Step Guide to Craft Your B2B Sales Strategy:
1. Find your Target Audience:
Before planning any strategy, you need to know your target audience. Every customer is different, and has different requirements. So, what is the right outline to define your set of prospects?
You can segregate them based on the geographical region, company size, technology usage, and others.
Yes, the geographical region hugely matters. The APAC region may have different rules and requirements than the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, and Africa). Besides that, in some countries, people have a different thinking process due to many factors such as cultural, political, social, and many more.
Having a broader idea of the customers in every region gives you a 360-degree viewpoint.
For Example, Jim Close, RVP of sales UK&I, Kofax, stated them you need to do better research when communicating with a UK customer than a US customer as the majority of the UK population don’t trust the sales representatives. The sales representative has to back their claims with the accurate and trustworthy data to convince these customers.
2. Cultivating the Relationship:
A right relationship is something that every representative craves for. If you have had a good customer relationship in the past, you might tend to put less effort into nurturing it. This is not the right way.
You have to be in regular touch. As, no customer would like brands appearing out of the blue to sell their service or product. Send frequent emails, news, so that you remain on top of their minds.
3. Social Media Presence:
Establish yourself as a thought-leader, and make your presence felt on all the social media platforms.
source: marketinginsidergroup.com
Here you can see, how users are active on all social media platforms.
When you rightly showcase your product or service on these platforms, customers are attracted towards your brand. They then pass on the positive information about your brand to another audience.
Acknowledge, word-of-mouth really works. You could nurture your customers, who in turn, could help you acquire more customers in the process.
As people start trusting your brand, you would find yourself bombarded with many relevant questions that showcase your organization in a positive light.
4. Create Value Proposition:
Why should anyone collaborate with you?
This is an important question; if you don’t offer anything unique as compared to competitors, prospects wouldn’t be compelled to buy your service. So, it’s necessary to find your value proposition and project it the right way.
The answer to how your brand could do things differently to multiply revenue could put your prospects’ minds at peace. It later motivates them to purchase the product.
“Organizations that destroy the status quo win. Whatever the status quo is, changing it gives you the opportunity to be remarkable.” – Seth Godin
5. Make them Feel at the Driver’s Seat:
Always offer your customer a good range of options!!!!
If you are in the business for quite a while, you might know that customers like a good range of options.
Your competitors would be providing the same. So, offer your customers the best quotes with different values for their business. This would let them uphold your brand in the best possible way.
Acknowledge, making the customers feel special is what every brand looks for. If you have the opportunity, make the right use of it.
6. Hold your Horses:
Many representatives want the results at the moment. This is not a healthy thinking process, as it leads to obsession and these representatives start pestering customers.
A B2B sales process, need patience as the outcome is not immediate. There are various hierarchical decision-makers involved in a B2B decision; respect their process and let them take their time.
Calling them very often could irritate them, which you would surely not want. Find a balanced approach, that would surely shoot up your sales.
7. Make the Best Use of Data:
Sales representatives should make the best use of data.
Many times, we have come across this statement; data is the goldmine of information. But very few sales representatives take advantage of this data.
Get the right information at your side, so that you can find an increased number of sales opportunities across the world, that would be helpful in retaining customers, make you ready for the performance at the right time, and manage the challenges actively, thus making the life easier.
8. Cold Calling:
Don’t stop cold calling all of a sudden. This is one of the proven ways of generating the leads.
So, how do you make it effective?
- Start the call by telling about your company name and full name
- State the reason why you are calling
- Try to have more interaction with the prospect
- Plan the next steps
- Have the right tone to sound it like a beneficial deal for both the parties
source: hubspot.com
As per a finding, the best day to make sales calls in the first attempt is Wednesday. There is a huge difference of around 46% when you check the efficiency of making a call on Monday and Wednesday, with the latter showing favorable results.
source: gong.io
Many reasons can help you win a cold call. The opening line, reason, value proposition, asking questions, customer story are tactics that could guide you to win a cold call.
9. Communication Process:
While conversing with the customer, check whether they are asking relevant questions. If they are silently listening, they are probably not hearing or just passively listening. Whether you give a good presentation or not it doesn’t matter to them.
They are just making sure that you don’t push them to acquire the product or service. This is not beneficial for you, as you aimed to win their trust and make them purchase your product.
So, craft the presentation in such a way that they are forced to ask questions. You can give real-time examples of how your product helped the existing customers. If required, provide testimonials of these customers. While in many cases, organizations are themselves putting the testimonials on the company’s websites so that these prospects could check out the information and decide the next step.
10. Find out the Industry:
B2B Sales in different industries vary. The tactic which worked for the retail industry might not work for the construction industry. So, you should change the sales pitch to meet the needs of every set of the customers.
If you are not aware of approaching customers of different industries, it’s better to check their websites, social media handles, and others to get the detailed information. You could also collect news from different magazines, articles and other sources to have the complete information on each industry. This would help in the smart move and the customer would think of you as a knowledgeable sales representative.
Conclusion:
B2B sales is a long and complex process in an organization.
It needs the right strategy, and implementation so that high-end prospects could be converted. As the process sometimes involves many decision-makers, representatives often need to modify the sales pitch to meet their requirements.
