Sales Intelligence

B2B Sales Strategy: A Guide to Woo Modern-Day Buyers

B2B sales strategy has come a long way from the time of networking at trade events or rattling off pitches while cold calling. 

Almost a decade ago, Accenture brought to light how a shocking 94% of B2B buyers conduct online research before making a purchase. Naturally, this figure would have increased by quite a lot as the internet becomes more ubiquitous and self-servicing continues to gain momentum. That’s not to say that cold calling and emailing are no longer relevant – on the contrary, they are still some of the most preferred mediums for establishing contact!

All that’s changed are the B2B buyer’s expectations. 

So, how can one keep up with these changing expectations and tailor the B2B selling strategies accordingly? Well, we have a timeless guide just for this purpose! Read on to know all about devising a killer B2B sales strategy.

What Has Changed With B2B Digital Sales?

As we’ve mentioned already, B2B digital sales have evolved quite a bit with the changing customer expectations. Here are some of the trends that we’ve noticed in the past few years:

Customers are making their own decisions

As much as 45% of a B2B buyer’s time goes into researching independently, online or offline, about a product they wish to purchase. On the other hand, they spend a measly 17% meeting with potential suppliers, which works out to be only 5 to 6% with the salespersons when multiple vendors are involved. As such, your reps have very little time to influence the buyers and tip the scales in your favor.

Customers are flooded with choices

B2B commerce has been booming, which has made the industry lucrative enough for new players. At the same time, the rampant digital transformation has triggered a wave of B2B eCommerce, with nearly 65% of B2B companies making a grand entrance. Against this background, customers are spoilt for choices with the wealth of options available, and your B2B selling strategies could function as competitive differentiators to set you apart.

The decision-making periods are getting longer

A typical purchase journey involves six to ten decision makers or stakeholders – each of them having about four to five items of information that they would have gathered independently. While it might bring harmony and a clearer perspective to the group, it could also turn out to be a bone of contention. The cycle of resolving conflicts and reaching unanimity in decisions elongates the purchase decision lifecycle.

The buyer’s journey is no longer linear

In the yesteryears, a B2B buyer’s journey was rather straightforward – you begin with cold calling, identify the decision maker, meet in person, and close the deal. However, as the digital channels of outreach diversify, so do the permutations and combinations of the touchpoints in the buyer’s journey and how everything plays out.

A prospect may visit your landing page, learn about the product/service on call, request quotes through email, sign up for a free demo through social media – the list goes on. Given this front, 94% of sales executives attest to the power of an omnichannel B2B sales plan for driving conversions.

Information-driven purchases are on the rise

Information could be that fine line between a successful sale and a missed opportunity. That does not mean that businesses have to overwhelm customers with information overloading. In fact, they have to be selective to offer such information in the form of value. Every value-loaded interaction would eliminate barriers in the purchase journey.

It is believed that a customer-focused, data-driven sales strategy could enhance customer experience by 2.8x due to greater ease. Plus, such a purchase is 3x more likely to translate into a high-value, low-regret deal.

Businesses have their own checklist of tasks

Almost every B2B organization has devised a formula for proceeding with any purchase. Typically, the cycle would commence with problem identification and end with consensus for the option selected. The interval between these endpoints is subject to change from business to business and sector to sector.

However, such broad elements are present regardless. With such a defined and structured approach to B2B sales, aligning your sales strategy for B2B business can help drive the success rates to new highs.

The 7-Step B2B Digital Sales Strategy

Now comes the meat of the entire discussion – a reliable B2B sales strategy that you can emulate! Whether you are looking for a B2B software/SaaS sales strategy or a B2B sales plan for physical assets, here are some proven ways to improve its performance:

Conduct market research

The first stage of any B2C or B2B digital sales involves market research. Here, you get the opportunity to gauge the market-led demand for your product or service. It also offers insights into who your competitors are, along with their respective  B2B selling strategies.

Based on this information, you can evaluate the feasibility of your venture, identify your target audience, map out the buyer’s journey, and prepare a lead qualification system. While these activities may seem like a lot, you only need to carry out high-level planning at this stage. As you progress in drafting the B2B sales strategy, you will then get a chance to iron out the details as much as you would like.

Develop customer personas

When you have a broad idea of who your customers are (or aren’t), you need to document your findings to create customer personas. B2B customer personas are vastly different from B2C ideal customer profiles (ICP) as you would be targeting the decision-makers within the company. As an illustration, here are a few details that can flesh out the fictional employee of your company:

  • Demographic details – age, gender, education, income, etc.
  • Company role – current position in the company, the individual’s authority or say in the purchase decision, etc.
  • Contact details – email address, phone number, etc.
  • Interests – personal and professional interests, such as favorite websites, forums, magazines, apps, etc.
  • Personal and private ambitions – tangible goals that they wish to achieve on the personal and professional front.
  • Challenges – problems coming in the way of achieving the aforesaid goals.

You might also have to define personas based on businesses – their industrial sector, number of employees, existing tech stack, organizational goals, etc.

Qualify leads into prospects

Once you have identified your target audience, it is time to figure out which prospects are worth the chase so that your sales team can optimize the B2B selling strategies. 

Traditionally, B2B companies followed the BANT model of lead qualification, which factored in the Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline. However, the lead qualification process becomes increasingly easy for a data-driven sales strategy in the modern-day B2B ecosystem. 

The trick lies in collecting as much demographic, firmographic, and behavioral information as possible and comparing the resulting user profiles with your predefined customer personas. You can do this using the Sandler Pain Funnel.

Such a holistic approach will help qualify leads and prioritize them on the basis of the probability of conversion, aka score leads. Considering that nearly 50% of your prospects are not a good fit for what you sell, a reliable lead qualification strategy can save your company a lot of time and effort.

Make initial contact

Despite what sensationalized headlines want you to believe, emails and phone calls continue to remain the go-to medium for B2B cold outreach. While the success rate of emails depends on a ton of variables, 70% of B2B sellers have reported success through cold calling.

In fact, phone call features in three of the top five statistics in the best outreach methods, be it for new contacts, existing clients, or past clients! As such, you can hardly go wrong with cold calling for your initial contact.

However, as businesses turn global, VoIP calling could be a more adaptive and reliable way to cold-call your prospects. You can acquire a local number to build credibility, get your entire sales team onboard in the middle of a crucial call, and use data-driven insights to improve the conversation. 

Drop your sales pitch

Now that your qualified lead has warmed up to you and you have worked past all the gatekeeping, do not waste any time beating about the bush, and get straight to the pitch. 

When it comes to sales pitches for B2B digital sales, the short is sweet.

Since your sales rep would be pitching to the key decision-makers, that is, the business leaders and C-suite executives, a succinct and to-the-point sales pitch will be a mark of respect for their time.

Plus, crafting your sales pitch to open with a customer-centric value proposition would naturally be far more impactful than bumbling through a presentation of your product’s features and specifications. Whether you give the pitch on call, through a video, or in person, make it all about the customer to rope them in and maintain their attention.

Follow Up

In an ideal situation, your sales pitch should be enough to tip the scales in your favor and fast-forward to closing the deal. However, real-life B2B digital sales is far more convoluted. For instance, even if you deploy the best possible B2B SaaS sales strategy, it would the decision-making process could still last about 1-3 months – sometimes even more. As such, you will have to engage, inform, and enlighten the lead for days and weeks even after a killer sales pitch.

Make it a point to follow up with the lead – be it through emails, over social media like LinkedIn, at trade shows, or wherever your client prefers. You can politely check on the status of the decision or fish for any sales objection to counter; the point is to make the interaction meaningful or deliver value at every touchpoint. Remember, you need an average of five follow-ups to close a deal and 70% of salespeople give up after their first time. So, stay persistent.

While you may feel like you are walking on thin ice, a blend of proactivity, personalization, and perception with a heady mix of personal space could help you crack the B2B sales strategy code. 

Close

Always remember the ABC of B2B digital sales – Always Be Closing.

After all, all the effort that you have put into capturing, nurturing, and engaging leads will amount to nothing if your sales strategy for B2B business fails to have powerful closing techniques. However, before you decide to push for a sale, go through the available B2B sales analytics to chart out where the customer stands in the buyer’s journey. Pulling the trigger too soon could result in a lost opportunity.

Once you are satisfied that now is a good time to press for a sale, use a sales closing technique based on social proof, emotional connection, or cold, hard facts to sway the decision in your favor. In all probability, your sales team would have already narrowed down to a couple of proven B2B closing strategies that have given consistent results in the past and will continue to do so in the future as well.

Even though closing the deal is the end goal, B2B businesses should also be okay with cutting their losses and walking away if the situation calls for it. After all, nothing is more draining than a B2B sales plan that is a wild goose chase.

Closing Thoughts

From the above, it is evident that the digital landscape is changing B2B sales as we know it. Rather than reaching out to customers, brands are now being approached by customers who have performed their homework and due diligence. At the same time, a data-driven sales strategy is paving the way for personalization even in the B2B segment. 

Such changes have made the B2B sales cycle shorter and a lot more intuitive. All one needs to prepare for this wave are the tools, techniques, and technology to enable their sales team to find the best way forward. 

Now the time for talking is all done, use the B2B sales strategies listed above and dive into the war field to identify what works best for you!

Sid heads the global Sales Team at JustCall. He has been instrumental in establishing the foundation for the GTM functions at JustCall, driving the organisation into a growth phase. He is passionate about enabling organisations to build great customer experiences using technology. He is always looking to help startups beyond work, advising early stage companies on all things Sales & GTM.

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