Creating a Successful B2B Sales Strategy: 5 Tips to Stay Ahead of the Game

 

They say variety is the spice of life, and making plans on the fly can create incredible opportunities and memorable experiences. 

But when it comes to B2B sales, there’s a lot at stake and you can’t afford to just “wing it.”. While it requires creativity and flexibility, a successful sales campaign only comes from hours of research, careful deliberation, and hard work. 

B2B sales are harder than ever. Consumers have the entirety of the internet right at their fingertips, leading to customers who have done a lot of research and already decided what they want and how they want it…before they even reach your door (literally or figuratively). 

How do you stay ahead of the game?

By creating a solid B2B sales strategy. 

 

What is the B2B Sales Process?

Before you can begin crafting your own B2B sales strategy, let’s run through the steps of the sales process, shall we? 

• Research. The info-gathering stage can’t be skipped. This is where you lay the foundation for your strategy by understanding your competition, the market, and your target customers. Flesh out your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) and get an idea of how you can best market to them in whatever stage of the buying process they are currently in.

• Qualify Leads. Not every lead is a good lead, and you don’t want to waste time, resources, and potential revenue on a lead that isn’t qualified. Assess interest, budget, and need. Asking specific questions about their pain points and struggles will further uncover whether this is a real opportunity or not. 

• Pitch. Now that you have a well-rounded understanding of your lead, you use that information to create a personalized pitch showing how your product or services will make your customer’s life blow up with awesomeness. 

• Follow-Up. While we wish all B2B sales pitches ended with a sale, usually that’s not the case. Often you have to reach out many times (whether directly or indirectly) before closing a sale. Sometimes scheduling a demo or some other informational appointment is helpful to bring skeptical leads on board.

• Close. Score! A sale is made. Now you can work up terms of service or purchase agreement, onboard the new client, and celebrate a successful new business relationship with your signature victory dance (we know you’ve got one).

• Collect Data and Measure Results. Whether you close the sale or not, every encounter with a lead is serving to give you a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t. Be sure to take all your data and record it to improve and optimize performance, productivity, and results. 

Understanding the steps of the sales process helps you formulate an effective B2B sales strategy as you move through each step in turn. 

 

6 Tips for Successful B2B Sales

As you formulate your own specific B2B sales strategy, we have a few handy dandy tips to consider throughout the process.

1. Prepare Yourself to Play the Long Game. 

While sales is a thrilling and rewarding venture, it’s not easy. As we’ve already outlined, the sales process is just that: a PROCESS, and a rather long one at that. Plus there are bound to be customizations and different strategies implemented throughout every step as you work with individual leads and a variety of marketing campaigns. 

If you enter into B2B sales thinking your work is going to be quick, easy, and simple, you will get discouraged and frustrated. Period. Mindset is the key to endurance, and you need to enter into this endeavor with realistic expectations. 

Here are just a few ways you can invest in your long game:

• Prepare and educate team members. As the mouthpiece of the company, investing in the training of your sales reps and call agents is imperative. If they aren’t confident in themselves and their knowledge of your product, services, or industry, it’s gonna show, and it won’t be pretty. “Knowledge is power,” and this is true for your team members, so equip them with the information and tools they need to answer questions and objections.

• Take a chill pill. During the sales process, you will undoubtedly run into rude or pushy customers, less-than-tactful objections, and a million other scenarios that will threaten to push your buttons and make you lose your cool. Sales is a tough business, and not for the faint of heart. Responding with patience, respect, and courtesy can turn a potentially explosive scenario into a positive experience—and maybe even a sale. 

• Become a follower. Social media is a huge part of everyday life, including business life. Following and engaging with your prospects on social media has a two-fold benefit: not only does it build relationship and keep your name and brand in your prospect’s mind, but you also get an inside view into your lead and their business, allowing you to market better and smarter. 

• Use the right tools. Investing in great CRM software and using sales and marketing tools will optimize your process and allow more time to focus on non-automated tasks.

2. Build Client Relationships. 

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: building relationships is more important than closing a sale.  A lead can walk away from an encounter with a positive impression of your company without ever buying anything. While this may be disappointing for you in the short term, relationships are long-term Investments that often bring in more leads and more sales, all while building and maintaining a great brand reputation.

While client relationships will never be the same as other closer relationships, the basics of building strong relationships can be applied to all relationships,  personal and business alike.

• Communicate transparently, consistently, and honestly.
• Get to know your client and understand their needs.
• Be open to receiving feedback.
• Keep your promises.
• Show your personality and be human!
• Go above and beyond to serve your customers and give them an exceptional experience. 

3. Understand the Customer’s Emotions and Motivations.

The ability to read the room and understand where the customer is emotionally in the process Is a very helpful skill to develop when engaging in B2B sales. This is often called emotional selling and focuses on addressing the customers feelings about the sale or understanding how their personality will impact their decision, rather than strictly adhering to facts and selling points.

Is your lead indecisive or skeptical about the sale? Show empathy for their position and offer to help by providing additional information or scheduling a demo. If your lead shows signs they like to stay on top of their game and have a strong case of FOMO, emphasize what can be gained by closing and what could be lost if they don’t act. 

Every lead is different, and having skilled representatives who are emotionally adept not only increases sales, but also fosters customer-centric interactions that build emotional connections and encourages exceptional customer service. 

4. Focus on Tangible Results.

While you may be selling products and services, your customers are more concerned about the potential positive results they will experience from your products or services. They want to know that you can deliver the goods, take away their problems, and generally make their life easier and more awesome.

This tweak in focus is extremely effective in B2B sales and helps you stand out from your competition. It ties back into emotional selling and keeping a customer-centric mindset. Rather than strictly pitching your product or service and dwelling too long on features, spend more time highlighting the projected results your lead can experience if they decide to close.

A great way to call attention to the real-life benefits of what you’re offering is to create some well-written case studies with impressive statistics highlighting your client’s results. Have multiple studies to choose from so you can offer the one that speaks best to your lead’s industry, pain point, or desired goals. Make sure they are polished and readily available on your website as well as in a distributable form, such as a PDF. 

5. Sell Solutions. 

Most often people make a purchase to solve a problem. 

Hungry? Buy food. 

Toddler waking you up 8493 times a night? You know you’re heading to Target for room darkening shades and a white noise machine, ASAP. 

Your company struggling to optimize business processes and make the most of leads? Your Google search history probably includes “sales experience provider,” or, more specifically, “Squeeze” (…and if it doesn’t, it should!).

Your goal in B2B sales is to uncover your prospect’s problems and seek to address that need head on. This takes research and strong communication skills. You’ll need to know how to ask the right questions to dig down deep and draw out the issues. 

What are a few ways you can show your value as a solution provider?

• Explain how your product/service saves time, energy, and/or money.

• Identify the factors perpetuating the problem and show how you can solve the problem at the root cause.

• Highlight how your solution will improve the service they provide their own customers.

When your prospect gains an understanding of how you can provide solutions that impact them personally and as a business, they will be more likely to close. The investment of the sale is worth what they receive in return.  

6. Optimize B2B Sales with a Sales Experience Partner. 

While your sales and marketing teams should ideally function as two sides of the same coin, often this is not the case. In fact, both teams may be unintentionally sabotaging the B2B sales process as they struggle with overwhelming clutter tasks and prospecting work that is not clearly designated to one team or the other.

The ultimate B2B sales hack is to optimize your marketing and sales teams by partnering with a sales experience provider. Research shows that sales teams spend two-thirds of their time on non revenue-generating tasks. This directly translates into lost revenue opportunities as your company’s money makers are wasting time on activities other than selling and closing.

If you’re serious about optimizing and accelerating your B2B sales process, making the most of every lead, and increasing revenue, then a sales experience provider like Squeeze is the way to go. Outsourcing the grunt work of prospecting and all that extra busy work frees up your teams to do the jobs they love and were actually hired to do. 

 

Are You Ready To Squeeze the Day?

We sure are! Our teams are ready to join forces and start optimizing your B2B sales process. Contact us today and let’s start working together to help your business become the very best it can be!