Selling to B2B customers is difficult; that’s no secret. But then again, selling was never easy, to begin with. The days when a salesperson was in charge of the buying process are long gone. In this article, I would like to discuss the 3 B2B Sales Proven Strategies to Win More Customer.
Only 17% of the entire B2B buying process meets with potential suppliers because Today’s buyers prefer to conduct their research and select what to buy on their own. For example:
- Only 29% of buyers want to talk to a salesperson to learn more about a product,
- 57% of buyer decisions are made before buyers even pick up a phone to speak to a supplier,
- And, 34% of salespeople admit that closing deals are getting harder.
Does this mean that the days of reaching your sales quotas are gone?
No, of course not!
However, to keep closing deals, you need to keep up with the modern B2B sales dynamics. Then, you need to learn the sales approaches that will help you achieve your goals.
In this article, we’ll discuss the meaning of business to business sales, how to make B2B sales win big in 2021, and will share practical sales strategies that you can implement to overcome modern-day sales challenges.
Let’s have a refresher and define what B2B Sales mean;
What are B2B sales?
B2B sales, also known as business to business sales, refer to companies who primarily sell products and services to businesses rather than direct consumers (B2C). B2B sales typically have higher order values, longer sales cycles and are often more complex than B2C sales.
B2B sales have changed dramatically in recent years, and the B2B sales strategies that used to work are no longer effective.
Modern buyers pay a lot of attention to peer recommendations.
We all know that you can pretty much find every opinion and information about anything online nowadays.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that modern buyers use social media, forums, and other channels to learn more about potential solutions they are looking into.
Recently, Forrester discovered that B2B buyers find three pieces of content about your firm for each part of content your organization has created. And what’s more, they put immense trust in that information.
Google/TNS and Ogilvy discovered that word of mouth is the most powerful influencer in purchasing decisions, beating other channels like a company’s website and interaction with the vendor.
Luckily, there are ways to surmount these sales challenges, and here are 3 of the most efficient ways to help you generate better quality leads.
Embrace sales enablement to help prospects make better buying decisions
Just because Today’s buyers prefer to conduct research online themselves, it doesn’t mean that they can’t interact with you during the process.
Quite the opposite.
You see, B2B buyers rely on the content to guide them through the buying process and gain the knowledge necessary to make an informed decision.
And although they can easily find the information, it isn’t always the right kind of information.
And here lies the opportunity for you. Grab it.
Create a content library, including all your assets that answer your target audience’s most common questions at different stages of their buying journey.
Once you have created a content library, you can then ask your salespeople to share them with their prospects proactively.
But what kind of content should you share?
Research from Live Hive found that decision-makers are much more responsive towards sales reps when they include case studies, industry articles, sales collateral, and white papers in their outbound strategy.
And if you still doubt how effective this is, consider the following:
- 95% of buyers select a vendor who provided them with ample content to help navigate through each stage of the buying process
- 68% of customers feel more optimistic about a brand after consuming content from it
- 82% of buyers viewed at least five pieces of content from the winning vendor
- And companies that develop sales enablement strategies typically win 13.7% higher contract value
Make salespeople the spokesmen (and women) for your brand.
Sending your prospects relevant content will help you close more deals.
But, that’s not the only way to use content to overcome modern B2B sales challenges.
Another way is to position your salespeople as experts in the field.
Here’s why:
We know that modern B2B buyers are becoming increasingly skeptical about sales and marketing messages.
And that many B2B buyers want to interact with salespeople who listen to their needs and provide them with relevant information.
Now, imagine how buyers would feel about a sales rep (and, in turn, the brand they work for) that has shared insights and information relevant to their pain points?
Yes, you guessed it – as experts worth paying attention to!
Here’s how you can achieve this:
Have salespeople create and share content that’s helpful, informative, relevant to the buyer’s pain points, and allow them to publish articles on your company’s blog (and repost on their LinkedIn profile).
When your sales team creates content, make sure that the content they publish provides a unique perspective on prospect’s challenges and then provides them with actionable insights they could use to progress through the customer journey.
Align sales and marketing teams to work towards the same goal
According to various studies, sales and marketing misalignment can cost companies 10% or more revenue per year.
Think about the typical problems arising from misalignment:
- Lack of standard definition of a qualified lead, resulting in marketing delivering contacts salespeople can’t close.
- No unified content library, meaning that sales teams can’t find assets to forward to prospects. And we’ve already discussed how crucial that is to the sales process.
- Irrelevant KPIs that fail to assist in improving each team’s performance
At the same time, 56% of companies with both teams aligned met their revenue goals, and 19% exceeded them.
Other benefits of aligning sales and marketing include increased brand awareness, average deal size, and annual company revenue.
B2B sales have changed.
It’s no longer as simple as waiting for prospects to come to you.
Instead, you need to be proactive and find the channels where potential customers are and share relevant content with them that addresses their needs. You also need to work closely with your marketing department and use the content they create as a sales tool to move prospects further down the sales funnel.
By doing this, you will start building stronger business relationships with your buyers and, more importantly, you will gain their trust – and that’s the key to succeeding in modern B2B sales. Gotta keep up with the B2B Sales Strategies today!
Recent Comments