According to Forrester, B2B eCommerce opportunities will be at least US$1.8 trillion in 2023-2024.
That's a lot of Benjamins.
It also means that the opportunities in the B2B world are ripe for the taking if only your company has a solid sales strategy.
But many do not.
Many organizations are hungry to get out there and sell and do so before thinking through a strategy.
Since a solid B2B sales strategy is so necessary for business operations, let's explore what that could look like to help your company get a cut of that US$1.8 trillion slice of the pie.
Most of us know that B2B stands for business to business, where one company sells its products or services to another.
This commercial transaction requires extensive product planning and a marketing and sales strategy. B2B sales usually involve more expensive products, a longer sales cycle, and a comprehensive stakeholder decision being made.
Your B2B sales strategy simply outlines how you plan to influence revenue growth. For example, your strategy may be based on long-term relationship building, or you may take a self-serve product-led growth route (take Netflix as an example).
A good B2B sales strategy will gain buyers' trust and assure them of the quality of the product. That's why a foundational sales strategy will help any business succeed.
Most professionals are going to say that B2B sales strategies are much more complex than B2C ones: they would be correct.
Selling to businesses or consumers involves different stakeholders, marketing funnels, sales cycles, and much more. Each type of strategy has its own unique features and considerations.
When selling to either B2B or B2C customers, there are a number of factors involved in determining who and how to sell. These include:
|
B2B Sales |
B2C Sales |
|
Solve a Business Problem |
Solve a Consumer Problem |
|
Solve the problem in a compelling manner; must convenience multiple stakeholders |
Doesn’t have to be as compelling, but its a nice to have option |
|
Company focuses on high ROI products, low volume |
Focuses on high volume, ROI depends on product costs vs. actual sales |
|
Wholesale options available |
Wholesale doesn’t often apply, one-time consumer based purchases |
|
Customer journey is often complicated |
Customer journey can be moer straightforward |
|
Customers make decisions based on ROI and life-time customer value (LTV) |
Purchases are often emotionally driven |
|
Typically must convenience a group of stakeholders |
Must convenience only one or two people to adopt a product |
|
Longer sales process |
Can have a shorter sales process |
|
Utilizes word of mouth and referrals, usually from business contacts, friends, and less often family |
Sales can happen because of word or mouth and referrals, especially from friends and family |
|
Must overcome critical trust objections with products, services, and ideas |
Less objections to products, but more for services |
There are several steps that go into crafting a good sales B2B strategy.
Businesses that have been around for a while constantly refine their sales process as the market and product evolve.
There is no right or wrong answer necessarily, as long as the company has a clear vision of what they are looking for in both a customer and a B2B sales process.
There are two main methods to defining your customer base: through researching current customers or creating personas for new ones.
When looking at either option, a company and a sales team need to assess:
Answering these questions will help you to define your ideal customer and find the best way to reach them and make sales.
Creating a buyer persona is an excellent way to model your ideal customer. While many salespeople would scoff at this activity (because it is considered marketing!), it's vital.
A buyer persona is a fictional representation of an ideal customer with the traits and characteristics your company is looking for. In marketing, this is used to create content that will engage your target persona: from social media posts to blog posts.
In the sales world, a buyer persona can be used to connect with your customers and form lasting relationships.
Once you define your target customer, you can build your market fit based on that.
You need to define your target customer's underserved needs (called pain points) or what they want but are not getting from current products. The user experience should make the product a pleasant experience for the user and make them want to use it again.
It's best if there is already a demand for your kind of product, service, or idea - that way, your clients might already be excited about what you are offering them. If you don't have market fit, then you might end up with little to no customers excited about your product.
Since B2B sales are driven by need, analyzing where your product fits in the saturated market is key to your success. Once you know your market fit, you can move on to your value proposition.
Your value proposition should be an answer to your target population's underserved needs.
Most companies know why they are in business and what they are trying to achieve: for sales, there can be multiple value propositions necessary to craft a finely tuned B2B sales strategy. Since one isn't usually enough, having multiple value propositions covers all your essential bases.
A good value proposition should consist of:
The Harvard Business School has a handy tool that helps businesses develop extraordinary value propositions for free: create a unique value proposition create a unique value proposition here.
This involves looking into the message that your company is sending out into the world and how it makes people feel. Identifying the customers' state of mind and emotions when buying the products will help you understand why your company makes them feel a certain way and why they might choose you over the competition.
Use message testing services like Wynter to check your messaging resonates before taking it to market.
You need to be using a different message than your competition in order to stand out and set yourself apart. Look at the competition's ads, find what they are not saying, and then craft more valuable messaging.
A Customer Relationship Strategy (CRS) is a plan to improve customer service and grow sales. This usually involves the sales, marketing, and customer service departments in a business. The best CRS involves both people and technology.
Revisiting your overall business strategy and goals will help to define your CRS. Next, you need to decide what you want from CRS and how it can contribute to the success of your business. Some examples are increased customer satisfaction, higher productivity, better customer engagement, and customer retention.
Defining your ideal customer and customer journey to ensure the best possible experience at each point will help these goals become a reality.
A sales approach is the technique a salesperson uses to convince customers to buy a product. For a company, a sales approach should provide a clear plan to your sales team and define the objectives of your approach. Understanding your ideal customer and how to attract them is key to a good sales approach.
You should keep in mind all your information from growth goals, KPIs, buyer personas, and selling methodologies. But it is also helpful to understand what makes a person want to buy something and how every situation affects how people make decisions.
Go into prospecting with an understanding of your ideal customer and what makes them buy. It helps to focus on small goals at first. Then, do your research and aim for a follow-up or a meeting instead of immediately punching for a sale.
You should also use technology to help you reach your goals. Things like data and prospecting insights, auto dialer, and lead scoring can be used to support your sales strategy.
There are many B2B sales strategies and tactics that can be utilized to help your team do the best work that they can. Some B2B sales strategy B2B sales strategy examples include:
Storytelling is inherent to sales, but it is a methodology that can be incorporated into a B2B sales strategy.
Storytelling is the main reason that platforms like TED Talks are so popular; a good story can help sell products, services, or ideas in a way that can humanize industries like technology. In addition, it helps with product adoption and makes challenging ideas easier.
Storytelling can be integral to pitches, phone calls, general language, meetings, and much more.
Consultative selling is used to sell a solution, not just a product.
This strategy offers customized solutions as the salesperson acts more like an advisor and tries to find the best solution for whatever problem the customer has. Pain points and needs are fundamental to this sales strategy, which requires active listening from the salesperson or team.
This methodology is applicable when the customer has done the research already but is unsure of what the right product is still. Then, a relationship is formed because of customized help offered by the salesperson. Even if the customer chooses a different product, in the end, they will remember the service they received and are likely to return.
Needs satisfaction selling aims to teach the prospect about the product's benefits. This methodology has been around since the 1980s but can still be beneficial for the right customer and client.
For this sales strategy, the employee will try to discover the customer's needs and craft a solution that meets those needs. Of course, this requires that a company has the answer for the client they are approaching: research and proper prospecting are key to this methodology.
Because the market is so saturated, often the salesperson will help the customer establish criteria to help them make a decision.
This methodology is used when two businesses share their resources so that they can both grow their businesses.
They use a partnership that benefits them both; they support each other's sales and customer relationships. This kind of relationship can be between businesses that are similar, completely different, or even between a current seller and buyer.
For some B2B industries, strategic partner selling makes a lot of sense. Businesses that fill gaps in each other's product or service offerings can maximize both companies' ROI.
We all know that software is intended to make everything easier: that includes any and all sales strategies for B2B.
There are just as many SaaS solutions with so many B2B sales strategies and tactics available to the average salesperson.
Here are some of the best software for your B2B sales strategy:
Ringy was created to revolutionize your business, one automation at a time.
Task automation is one of our key features that make any B2B software sales strategy seamless and without additional stress. Your sales team is probably adverse to administration, so having software that makes it easier to perform these tasks is critical. Ringy's task automation means that your sales team can spend more time selling and less time doing repetitive tasks.
Ringy's tool ensures consistency and best practices in the world of SMS campaigns. As a result, a company can easily and affordably reach its target audience, current customers, and potential leads. Many companies do not include SMS campaigns, which are expensive, as an add-on feature.
Ringy is a powerful software that can handle everything from small business to large enterprises because all of our features are available to all companies, regardless of the size. In addition, our service comes with expert assistance, superior onboarding, and as much help as your company needs at no additional cost to you.
Nutshell is designed for marketers who are interested in driving sales. Specifically, they focus on email marketing and reaching a company's target audience.
Nutshell focuses on reporting, forms, collaboration, pipeline management, and sales automation as an email platform.
One of the downsides to Nutshell is its pricing. For small to medium-sized businesses looking for simple CRMs, Nutshell might be a good option. But for enterprise companies, the price doesn't make sense when so many features, emails, users, and more needs to be added to the cost.
This platform also looks at sales through a marketing lens. However, for a robust B2B sales strategy, Nutshell might not have all of the features necessary for a sales team to be successful.
|
Nutshell |
Ringy |
|
Offers two levels of service |
One price for all businesses |
|
Drag and Drop Methodology |
Drag and Drop Methodology |
|
Email and Calendar Sync |
Email and Calendar Sync |
|
Reminders |
Reminders from all your technology |
|
Has an integrated marketing component |
Also includes a marketing component |
Pipedrive is the "all-in-one sales platform for growing revenue," using automation and pipeline development. This company's goal is to make your B2B sales strategy as seamless as possible with automation and activities that make your sales life as easy as possible.
One of their top features is the visualization of the sales pipeline. Similar to many CRMs that lay out pipelines in a grid fashion, Pipedrive delivers in this way. Their visualization is easy to use, follow and makes all upcoming deals easy to understand.
While Pipedrive might be a good option for a larger company, they typically compare themselves to more extensive CRMs like Salesforce and Monday. This means they aren't going to be an excellent value to small to medium-sized businesses because of the overall cost, especially for features that aren't going to be useful to all teams.
|
Pipedrive |
Ringy |
|
Easy to use platform |
Easy to use platform |
|
Fully customizable plans |
Fully customizable plans and white labeling |
|
Uses Kanban view |
Advanced call features |
|
Has Workflow automation |
Has Workflow automation |
|
Feature limitations |
No feature limitations |
In our not so humble opinion, Ringy is the best B2B software because it is a complete CRM built to tackle all parts of your B2B sales strategy. In addition, our customization offers are the best in the business, and our automation is unlike many of the competition in the space.
An effective B2B sales strategy uses multiple techniques to reach the target audience. Three of the main B2B sales techniques are storytelling, consultative selling, and strategic partner selling.
Four of the most effective B2B sales strategies are:
A B2B sales strategy is one of the activities that all businesses that want to succeed should create. There are numerous benefits to having a solid strategy, and having software to automate makes selling easier.
Ringy's demos are unique, so we don't waste our time or yours. To be amazed at how we can help your company overcome B2B sales strategy challenges, book a demo now!