B2B Sales people are often seen as “intermediaries” or “middlemen.” They’re the ones who take orders and pass them on to others for fulfillment. They’re just “passing through,” right? Not necessarily! You can make a difference in how you do your job, which will ultimately make a difference in the final product. Here are 11 ways to improve sales in B2B:
1. Understand your buyers.
Who are your buyers? What motivates them? What do they care about? Understanding your buyers is essential to creating a sales strategy that resonates with them and speaks to their needs. Once you know who your buyers are, you can tailor your messaging and selling approach to fit them better.
2. Focus on the customer experience.
The customer experience is critically important in B2B sales. In fact, it may be even more important than in consumer sales. Alfalfa hay buyers are likely dealing with complex purchase decisions, and they need to be confident that you will deliver on your promises and meet their expectations. Make sure you focus on delivering an exceptional customer experience every step of the way.
3. Break down buying barriers by making it easier to buy.
Many B2B sales are hindered by “buying barriers,” including lack of alignment on goals, slow decision-making processes and high cost of switching suppliers. To overcome these obstacles, your company needs to take an active role in removing the barriers that potential customers face while evaluating new solutions or services. This might mean creating a fast-track trial program, simplifying approvals or offering simplified licensing models to get customer started faster.
4. Spread the word about success stories from existing customers.
Customer success stories are critical for sales enablement efforts because they help seed messaging with real customer examples of how you have helped them improve their business outcomes and what results they achieved . Sharing success stories with your sales team is one way to help them better understand and articulate the value of your solutions.
5. Increase visibility of your products and services.
If people can’t see your products or services, they can’t buy them. This may seem like an obvious statement, but it’s often overlooked in B2B sales. You need to ensure that you are doing everything possible to make sure your solutions are top-of-mind for potential customers. This means being present at key events, participating in relevant industry forums and making yourself visible on social media networks.
6. Train your sales team to effectively position and sell your solutions.
Your sales team is the face of your company to potential customers. So, it’s essential that they are trained to position and sell your solutions in the best possible light . Ensure that you provide them with the tools they need, such as value propositions, competitive differentiation messages, client testimonials and sample sales scripts to use during their presentations.
7. Leverage content marketing to support sales efforts.
Good marketing content can be an effective way to support sales enablement efforts because it helps prospective customers understand how your solutions address their business challenges. It can also help reinforce messaging developed by sales leaders and field reps while providing useful information to potential clients.
8. Involve sales in customer success programs.
Customer success is a crucial part of the equation when selling B2B products or services . You should ensure that your company has a formal customer success program in place before you embark on a sales cycle, and that involvement of sales from the beginning of the relationship. The customer success team can provide valuable input about how best to position your solutions and services at the outset of the campaign to maximize chances for a successful outcome.
9. Track your organization’s influence versus competition during different stages of the buying process.
Competition among B2B companies is fierce , so you need to know where your company stands vis-à-vis its competitors . You should track what’s happening at each stage of the buying process and compare this data with information about your competitors’ effort. So that, you can determine what messaging resonates most with prospects and which offers them value.
10. Align demand generation and sales efforts.
Many companies struggle with aligning their demand generation and sales efforts . This can lead to a situation where potential customers are being contacted by the company’s marketing team before they are ready to buy. It can create frustration and a negative perception of your company. You need to ensure that your demand generation and sales teams are working together to identify and qualify prospects early in the buying process so you’re not wasting time on unqualified leads.
11. Continuously measure and improve your sales enablement processes.
Sales enablement is an ongoing process, not a one-time event. You need to continuously measure and analyze the effectiveness of your sales enablement initiatives so you can make necessary adjustments to improve results. Automated balanced scorecard software helps companies analyze their initiatives while focusing on strategic and traditional financial goals to get a more balanced view of performance. It does this by tracking the right key performance indicators (KPIs) and using this data to focus efforts on specific areas and evaluate the company’s overall performance.
Conclusion
When it comes to B2B sales, you need to be thinking about how your customers think. The more that you can tap into how their brains work at different stages in the purchasing process or lead funnel, the better chance of driving more sales with less effort. Our team is ready and waiting to partner with you on creating a stellar SEO or marketing plan for your company by considering all these cognitive neuroscience principles. Which of these cognitive neuroscience principles have you applied to increase product sales?