Do you feel stuck figuring out the bottlenecks in your B2B sales strategy?
Well, we can understand your struggle. B2B sales is the lengthiest and most time-consuming process. But considering the potential revenue it can generate, it’s worth putting the efforts.
To make the process less intimidating, we will share 11 tips and techniques that’ll help you skyrocket your B2B sales process in 2022.
Let’s dive in!
Table of Contents
What is B2B Sales And Why Does It Matter?
B2B (business-to-business) sales is the process of transactions between two businesses rather than business to customer. You sell a product or service to another business instead of a direct customer.
The B2B sales process is more delicate and longer than the conventional B2C sales. In B2C sales, you spend most of your time trying to convince one individual. Conversely, In B2B sales, you have to convince a group of people including the sales team, managers, and marketing team.
Companies are opting for B2B sales strategies because it's more convenient to serve people. There’s no need for door-to-door marketing and selling.
Recommended Read: 25 habits of incredibly successful salespeople: Remarkable Sales Tips
How does B2B Sales Work?
The B2B sales process can be explained in 7 simple steps.
Step 1: Research
First, you need to define the buyer’s persona. In this step, you have to determine what your ideal client looks like, what problems they might be going through, their challenges, pain points, likes, dislikes, interests, passion, psychology, etc.
Step 2: Prospecting
Once you’re done with the homework, start hunting for clients. Find out where your ideal clients are hanging out and be active on those forums. It can be social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Join online forums such as Quora digest, Reddit, etc.
Step 3: Lead Qualification
When you know where your leads are, what they do, and their needs and wants, now it’s time to find the sweet spot between their needs and your services. You wanna make sure that your solution is exactly what they’re looking for.
Step 4: Pitching
The moment you’re done qualifying your leads and identifying your prospects, start pitching. Be extremely patient in this step. You can do it either by cold emailing the prospect or cold messaging on social media.
Some effective tips for cold pitching:
- First, build a strong rapport.
- Don’t sound salesy or pushy.
- Speak with authenticity and sound genuine.
- Provide help, resources, and solutions
Recommended read: How To Cold Call: 21 Cold Calling Secrets (From the Sales Masters)
Step 5: Objection Handling
In this step, you have to be prepared mentally and emotionally to face the counter-questions. Also, you may have to negotiate with the prospects regarding pricing.
Recommended Read: Everything You Need to Learn About Objection Handling And Unlearn.
Step 6: Seal the deal
Once you’re successfully done with the objection handling and negotiation, it’s time to close the deal. You can celebrate success with your teammates and share the challenges you faced along the way.
Step 7: Lead Nurturing
Never think once you close the deal, you’re done! It’s your responsibility to nurture existing clients with the relevant content. Send them personalized greetings, emails of recommended products, or anything that adds value to their lives. Nurturing can help you retain the clients.
11 Tips And Techniques To Skyrocket B2B Sales
Below are the most effective B2B sales techniques to 10x your ROI.
#1 Know The Prospects Inside-out
The core focus of your B2B sales strategy is prospects. Whether you're selling online or offline your first job is to find where they are? What do they do? Where do they spend most of their time ? You need to have an in-depth understanding of prospects’ behavior, habits, and decision-making abilities.
You can make use of tools such as answer the public.com, Quora digest, and Reddit where your potential audience hang out and find out more about them.
Be present on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Although you don't have to be present everywhere, make sure to be present where your prospects are!.
#2 Understand Buyer’s Journey
Have you ever purchased any product after seeing it for the first time?
Absolutely not, right?
You’ll first research about it, compare it with other products in the market, check its reviews, know more about the brand, etc. Similarly, your prospects will be on different levels of the buyer’s journey.
Ideally, there are 3 stages through which customers go through before purchasing:
#3 Ask The Right Questions
The kind of questions you’ll be asking can make a huge difference in your B2B sales strategy. The questions will uncover the hidden truth behind their decision-making.
Firstly, you need to find out “ why”, and ask yourself, “Why they should consider your solution ?” Why they’ll choose you over competitors ?” This will also help you in positioning yourself as a niche expert.
Also, asking the right questions plays a key role when having conversations with prospects. You would want to ask about the challenges and pain points they’re facing, the struggles they’re going through, how are they managing them, and what solutions they expect.
Recommended read : Whoever asks the questions controls the conversation- Intelligent sales tips
#4 Have A Solid Content Strategy
95% of buyers look for relevant informative content.
Content makes the bridge between you and your target audience. When you have a complete understanding of who they are, what they do, where they hang out, their thought process, and decision-making abilities, you can make use of it to create content.
Content helps to attract your ideal audience to your marketing funnel. As we’ve discussed above, the content for each stage of the buyer’s journey will be different. This content can be in the form of blog posts, social media posts, ebooks, freebies, checklists, etc.
You should create content that educates the audience about the product you’re selling. You can explain why your product is the best solution to their problem, the difference it will create, the outcomes it provides, etc.
#5 Build Relationships Beyond Business
The kind of relationships you build with your prospects decide whether they’ll come back to you or not. Customers show loyalty to those they feel closely related to.
To do that, make them feel special. You need to make sure that the experience they’ll have with you should be mesmerizing. It should be something they had never felt in their lives before. That’s what will make the difference between you and competitors in the market.
Recent data shows that 88 Percent of B2B Buyers Only Buy When They See a Salesperson as a “Trusted Advisor”
Offer genuine help to your prospects. Reach out to them on social media, connect, and send them valuable resources that might help them.
#6 Develop Strong Case Studies
What’s the first thing you do before buying any product/service? Ask friends and family for feedback?
A case study is a demonstration of how the given product/service brings about the desired results. A case study provides an idea about the working of the given product or service. It can also act as a review system for prospects will decide whether they want to continue with the product or not.
In a recent report by Hubspot, the company found that: 13% of marketers name case studies as their primary source of media used in their content strategy.
Recommended Read: Carestack sees uptake of 47% on close rate after adding Convin’s Conversation Intelligence in their sales stack
#7 Collect Testimonials/ Feedback On Your Services
You go to amazon and check reviews about the products before buying, right?
Testimonial helps to build trust among the audience about your product/service. The proof that someone has already purchased the product and got benefited from it makes it easier for them to make the purchasing decision.
The psychological phenomena of implicit egotism show that people gravitate more toward people and things that resemble themselves. Furthermore, a study by BigCommerse shows that 72% of consumers say positive testimonials and reviews increase their trust in a business
Making use of the above fact, You can ask existing customers about their opinions regarding your product. And flaunt it on your website and social media.
#8 Learn The Art Of Cold Pitching
Cold pitching can feel daunting. B2B marketing needs you to reach out to prospective buyers smartly. A recent study published on CRMNEXT shows that 82% of the buyers accept the meetings when salespeople reach out to them.
Cold pitching works like charm when you use the right approach. Here are top 4 tips to ace the race of cold calling.
- Make use of videos to get the most out of your cold calling strategy.
- Address the prospect's pain points and explain how your solution is the perfect fit.
- Don’t sell on the first opportunity, build rapport with the prospects.
- Make use of emotions as much as you can.
#9 Know The Competitors
Learning about the competitors is an integral part of your B2B sales strategy. You save hours of effort and time by merely understanding the competitors.
Competitors provide ideas about what’s already working in the market. You don’t have to waste your time figuring out everything by yourself. You can just follow the trends.
Moreover, You can research the competitors and find out where they lack. what is something that customers must but competitors aren’t able to fulfill? Try to fill the gap between what the prospects need and where competitors are lacking.
#10 Use CRM Software
CRM (customer relationship management) software helps to keep track of all the minor details regarding your business.
It becomes hard for B2B sales reps to handle all the work requirements like email marketing, content marketing, personalization, qualifying and nurturing leads, and understanding the ups and downs of the market.
CRM software can help you with that. Also, a CRM will give you the right insights on what’s working and what isn’t.CRM not only helps to gain the customers but also retains them for a longer duration.
#11 Sales Enablement
Sales enablement is the process of providing your sales team with all the required sales tools, resources, software, data, and training to achieve your B2B sales goals.
Equipping your sales team with sales enablement allows doubling the progress of your B2B sales strategy. Sales enablement includes reporting and analysis, technology and automation, sales content optimization, and sales enablement software.
Sales enablement will empower your sales team to sell more efficiently and confidently, it definitely has the potential to 10x the ROI. Also, it improves the team communication.
Recommended Read: 10 reasons you need a Sales Enablement Software for your business
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