Mastering the art of B2B selling

When it comes to selling to businesses, it’s a completely different game than selling to consumers. It requires a specialized set of skills and strategies that cannot be copied from consumer sales. To hit the right buttons B2B sellers are using not only different techniques compared to their B2C colleagues, the entire process for them is different. In theory the steps in a business-to-business selling process include understanding business needs of the prospective customer developing a personalized approach that would eventually lead to a closed sale. In B2B sales the decision to buy is often influenced by a group of people who offer their own preferences and expertise to the table. Identifying and congregating these influencers right from the beginning heavily impacts results. Imagine your sales team discovers buyers’ needs, spends days working with the delivery team to scope the project and develop a proposal only to find out that all of this work has been sent to a person who has no authority in making a decision to buy… So the entire work of your sales team is wasted. Innovative sellers are finding effective ways to get to the right people:

Map out decision makers and influencers on a visual diagram. Indicate their relationships, influence level, and loyalty to your company. Store it in your CRM along with the history of all communications. Such map will become an ultimate tool to make the right steps in the sales process.

B2B sales is also a long process that requires persistency and even innovation in keeping the communications with the prospects. It’s hardly a linear process however many sales people still strive to close deals in the first shot. Check this numbers:

Studies reveal that only 2% of deals takes place when the parties meet for the first time while 44% of sellers throw leads out of their sales pipeline after they hear the first “No” from the prospect.

80% of sales require 5 follow-ups!

Today, how you sell matters even more than what you sell. Keeping communications going even after a few “No” is one the sales life hacks we’ve outlined in our eBook. The study also focuses on practical tips and advices that can boost your sales and help to build new sales habits. As a bonus learn the how to smoothly move opportunities through the sales pipeline, leverage business process management capabilities in CRM or sales force automation system to guide sales reps to more profitable activities.

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