B2B Sales: How to skyrocket your revenue?

B2B sales

B2B sales involve commercial relationships between two businesses. One business sells its products or services to other businesses to improve their efficiency, assist in business operations, or improve revenue. In contrast to B2C, the B2B sales tend to be of higher commercial value, last longer, and involve several touchpoints over multiple channels.

The first step towards creating a successful B2B sales strategy is a problem-solving product that could add value to the other business. If your product solves a pain point of your target businesses and is then subjected to an effective sales process, it could lead to skyrocketing your revenue.

What are B2B sales?

B2B sales are the sales method in which the business trades its products or services with other businesses rather than selling directly to the consumers. Some of the common examples of B2B sales could be the business providing CRM to other companies, or the brands that produce raw materials for the manufacturing companies.

The B2B (or business to business) model directs the trading between one business entity and another. One of the companies could be producing materials or providing services that are important for the sustenance and smooth takeoff of the second company. And hence, the B2B model describes the relationship, trade situation, or marketplace between two legal entities.

Who is a B2B sales representative?

B2B sales representative is a professional representative who has the expertise to engage with corporate buyers with strategic sequences or specialized selling methods. As the B2B sales service entities directly communicate with the prospects, they become a significant part of the organization in relationship building with the prospects and portfolio growth. In the B2B market, the potential clients generally have to do a lot of research, check for the options available, and then keep the mess of the organization in mind before making any decision. Hence, it becomes visible that the B2B sales process requires constant lead nurturing and involves decision-makers in the process to make it smoother than ever.

When the deal involves two corporations, it makes sense that the sales process would be complex and involve higher price points. Not only do the sales representatives have a lot of back and forth, they also involve multiple touchpoints and decision-makers. They also have to be in the punishing environment of B2B selling constantly. They need to have convincing and manipulating personalities, organizational support, selling skills, sales tools, and an effective B2B sales strategy in action to make things happen.

What is the difference between B2B and B2C selling?

B2B stands for business to business and it covers having relationships, nurturing, and a lot of discussions with other decision-makers of other corporations or businesses. On the other hand, B2C stands for business to consumer and involves the sales made to individual consumers.

The main difference between B2B and B2C is that you will have to deal with the other executives and professionals while attempting B2B sales. The purchase value of B2B sales is much higher as it involves an organizational level. The salespeople need to be more aware of the target audience and have the highest level of professionalism to carry out the process. It would help if you dealt with many back and forth processes, involving multiple touchpoints, and the file moving to several decision-makers.

On the other hand, B2C sales include direct sellers and online intermediaries and generally have lower price points. As the companies focus on selling many products with low margins, there are generally few decision-makers as the decision is not so intensive and urgent for them. Also, when we put the lower price points as a factor, it becomes apparent why the B2C sales cycles tend to be shorter than B2B cycles.

What are the 7 stages of the B2B sales cycle?

-Preparation

-Prospecting

-Assessment

-Presentation

-Follow up

-Negotiation

-Closing

The seven stages of the B2B cycle cover all the steps a salesperson would use to convert prospects into customers. If we see it from a broad perspective, it is a set of scalable and repeatable instruction manuals that are meant to bring sales success. Here we have discussed your need to incorporate this step-by-step sales process into the plan and how much it can help you scale your business and take it to the next level.

Preparation

Research your prospect's company and its products and services. Then, research the stakeholders who are involved in the purchasing decisions. This preparation stage will allow you to showcase your strength and research the target audience, market, product, and the ultimate objective.

B2B Prospecting

This process allows you to know about your potential customers, reach out to them with a personalized message, and offer convincing offers with the help of the latest tools to make prospecting easier.

Sales Assessment

In the sales assessment process, you review your CRM system and other related technologies to understand your lead nurturing process better. Try to focus on the different sales scenarios and have great sales techniques that will help you leverage your judgment with critical thinking skills. Your attitude and behavior play a critical role in pushing your team ahead and bringing a balance between nurturing the existing clients and developing new businesses.

Presentation

You should start with a clear objective and address your clients' current state or problem. This would mean that your clients know the agenda of the meeting and have an idea of where they stand compared to the industry standards and competitors. Discuss the prospect's desired future state to make them interested and captivate their attention. This would be the best time to introduce your product or service and how it would penetrate the existing problems and make the overall situation better. 

Also, every industry has a large number of competitors who are trying to solve the same problems and target the same audience. It becomes essential to show how your company is different from the others in such a scenario and prove your unique selling point. You must always end with a call to action so that your prospects know which is the next step for them.

Follow up

In many cases, you would have sent two to three follow-up emails to your prospects and might have heard nothing in return. To solve this challenge, you must use various follow-up methods and keep every message captivating and personalized. Your follow-up message should provide value to your prospects and always find the next steps. 

The subject lines are crucial as they determine if your prospects would even care to open the email. In most cases, you would hear an answer from your prospect. However, in some cases, you would be ghosted by your prospects, and hence you should know when to stop.

Negotiation and closing tips for B2B sales

During the negotiation process, you should have the interest of your client in your product or service. Also, you should have a principle agreement in place and have facts and figures of success rates from previous engagements with other companies to demonstrate your track record.

Have a sales plan in mind, and you must know beforehand what selling concessions you are going to make and what you expect in return. And your offer should be so enticing that the client finally does not focus on the money and instead talk about the benefits. Understand the process and prepare to have the best negotiations and close the deal.

What factors to keep in mind before crafting a sales strategy?

Research on who is your target audience

Find your target audience

Your product or service generally serves a set of people and not everyone. As a B2B business, you must research and segment the industries that generally buy from you and whom you want to serve. It is crucial to be hyper niched, as it allows you to converse only with the people who could be genuinely interested in your offer and ultimately buy from you.

Find this excellent article on online reputation management to take your brand image to the next level.

For example, it would be wiser to target the marketing and advertising industry if your product allows outbound marketing. Similarly, you must be careful with the industry, location, demographics, company headcount, etc., to perform well in the B2B sales.

Not all decisions are left to the CEO of any company. If your product helps the other business in lead generation, it would be better to communicate with the CMO or the business head. The entire point of this paragraph is to converse with the right person, have the right message, and target the right industry to avoid any mismatch and have better chances of closing the deal. Find this resource on customer onboarding.

Define your value proposition

Courtesy for the image: HubSpot

 

Your value proposition is the reason why your customer should choose your product or service above your competition. Therefore, your value proposition must contain all the relevant information concerning how your product fills a gap in the existing system, the benefits, and why it is better than any other alternatives available in the market. Find this complete guide on digital marketing funnel.

The first step towards a successful value proposition is identifying the pain points of your customers. As your business is in the B2B sector, you could also point out how your product could assist your potential business in their daily tasks and assistance in improving their customer relationships. Here is a complete guide on CRM implementation.

Once you know your customer's pain points, it is time to elaborate on your product's benefits. Describe how your product could add value and ensure that you connect this value to your customer's pain point. You could work with us, the leading digital marketing agency to assist you in B2B sales.

Your product or service must be solving a burning crisis in your target business's operations.

Your offer must solve a major pain point

If your product or service isn't crucial to your target business's daily operations or impacts the revenue, it becomes optional for them to buy from you. It is often suggested that before you start your business, you must implement a set of services or dive deep into the problem that you are trying to solve. If 40% of your subject people agree that your product is necessary for the business, it means that you have found your product-market fit and would be a great commercial opportunity. See how to nail cold emailing.

It is better to address the problem faced by a majority and has the potential of high scalability. For example, you could look up your customers' reviews to get a hint of where you could improve your product.

Read this article for B2B marketing strategies.

Tips to improve your B2B sales

Nurture your leads with content marketing and search engine optimization

Content is the king

It is crucial to make your customers aware of your existence. The digital world is competitive, and the brands always try hard to let their voices be heard by their target audience. In such a case, it is important to rank for the crucial keywords for your business so that whenever a new potential lead searches for a query related to your business, they land on your page. Read this guide on PPC campaign strategy.

However, you would be astonished to know that most leads never convert because of the lack of lead nurturing. Even if potential client learns from your webpage, they need touchpoints at different marketing channels to trust your brand. It is said that your brand needs at least seven touchpoints with your customers before they buy from you. Content marketing is a great opportunity to connect with the right audience for your product. You could create content calendars and brainstorm ideas to have enough content to address your audience's possible queries. This is what you need to know about B2B sales outsourcing.

Your marketing must be focused on creating relationships

Create meaningful relationships

The B2B marketing tends to last for a long time, as compared to B2C marketing. Hence, your ultimate goal must be to establish a relationship with your potential buyers and have meaningful conversations to onboard them successfully.

Also, it would be wiser to have a professional approach to establish your authority and commitment to your promise or value proposition. Try to spread this brand awareness by constantly posting valuable and relevant content related to your business on your social media platforms to spread your reach and let other potential customers find you online. You must also regularly post valuable blogs on your website to get your brand a step ahead of the competition. In the case of B2B marketing, the prospects are generally driven by the content available for them. You could easily take a step ahead and create all the relevant content to help your customers navigate properly and find what could help them.

In B2B sales, go with the mindset of building trust and educating your buyers

Educate your customers

In B2B marketing, it is a no-brainer that the deal generally lasts for a long time if you are a SAAS business or other service-based business. But, at the same time, if the company has to continually change the service provider, it would mean more confusion and less revenue. Hence, the decision-makers generally try to choose the best option available by researching all the options available in the market.

In such a cutthroat scenario, if your B2B sales mindset was to build trust and educate your prospects, then you already have moved in the right direction. Nobody likes to get sold. However, everybody likes to get helped. The same mindset could differentiate you from the competition and edge you to close the deal on your terms. Your advertisement copies or other marketing activities must be focused on establishing your authority and professionalism.

Focus on email marketing to have a long term connection with your prospects

Email marketing is one of the most crucial forms of digital marketing that enables you to continually communicate with your target audience and send relevant content to earn their trust and establish your authority. Personalized emails tend to have a 50% higher open rate, making them a crucial part of your email marketing strategy.

Take it this way. If a person has subscribed to your email newsletter, it means that they are somewhat interested in your product or service but are not fully convinced to purchase from you, or it is not the right time for them. In such a case, if you continuously nurture your email list, then it becomes obvious that you would be a choice whenever your prospects look for services or products related to your business.

To increase the chances of your prospects to open the email, you must write exciting subject lines and stick to a call to action. You could also segment your email to send the most elegant information to your audience. You could also try cold emailing, as it is proven to have a good ROI.

Run a dedicated paid campaign to attract your prospects to your website

PPC campaigns

You should invest a dedicated amount in paid campaigns to bring your content and brand in front of new audiences via search engines and other advertising platforms. If you have sufficient information about your buyer persona, it would be easier to target the right person with your advertising campaigns.

CodeDesign has helped multiple brands in the B2B sector to connect with the right audience and improve sales. We have a dedicated team, years of experience, a portfolio to showcase, and client reviews and testimonials to justify our expertise. You would be amazed to know that we have a client recommendation score that is 376% higher than the market average. We have a winning culture and a team composed of elite-level digital marketers to help your brand excel and win big.

CodeDesign is a leading:

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Feel free to contact us to see the unprecedented growth of your business.

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