FROM PROSPECTS TO PROFITS: CREATING A WINNING B2B SALES STRATEGY

If you're a Business to Business (B2B) seller like me, excelling in sales is crucial for the success of your business. Therefore, shouldn't we have a strong and efficient B2B sales process? Unfortunately, I see many small businesses struggle with this even though it’s not as daunting as it may seem. In this article, I will outline the essential elements of a modern B2B sales process that will position you for success. However, before we create an effective process, we must ensure that our sales strategy incorporates the following elements:

• Customer-Centric Approach: As a passionate person, I must remember that although I am extremely enthusiastic about my ability to solve my prospects challenges, it’s the prospects pain points and unique circumstances, I need to focus on and align to. It's all about them, not me. 

• Goal-Oriented Objectives: Defined specific objectives, mission, and behaviors help a lot. Something like increasing revenue by a certain %, or exceeding speed of sales (efficiency) by a certain number of days. Having clear goals and defined benchmarks provides direction, focus and clarity for the teams to rally around. 

• Defined Sales Stages: Do sales teams comprehend each stage of the sales cycle and the corresponding tactics to drive success at each? For example, in most of my previous positions as SVP of Sales or Chief Marketing Officer, I employed seven stages in our sales cycle with defined behaviors associated with each. For example, the first stage of was "discovery", and its associated activity was "pre-call research" to learn about the prospect. In this way, this defined stage led to better customer experience, improved sales execution, and increased performance.

• Repeatable Processes: A sales processes that is easily replicated by everyone on the team ensures consistent execution, better performance and increased structure for everyone on the team. This reduces our reliance on individual talent for success and reduces the dreadful variability in revenue. 

• Predictable Outcomes: In most cases, when we implement a consistent and repeatable sales process as outlined above, it leads to more predictable results regardless of who is selling. 

• Measurable Results: The last element of the sales strategy is to ensure our sales process is measurable by attaching Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to every activity. This gives us measurable and actionable data about the results of our efforts. These are like vital signs of our sales strategy, allowing us to keep a finger on the pulse of its health.

Now that we have those elements in place, here are the steps to:

ESTABLISHING A SUCCESSFUL B2B SALES PROCESS FOR YOUR COMPANY.

Define Your Ideal Customer Profile: Create a fictional Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) that represents a company likely to benefit from your products/services. Focus your efforts on prospects that match this profile to maximize success. Since I partner with small businesses my ICP is a small business owner with 1-10 salespeople, under 50M in revenue who also sells B2B. 

Map Out the Buying Process: It seems like such a simple thing, but if your company hasn’t defined and mapped the process your customers go through to make a purchase you are just guessing and guessing about your customer experience and your teams cohesiveness can cost you time, money, and market share. Understand how to guide potential customers from initial contact to final purchase. Identify decision-makers, build trust, and address customer needs throughout the sales journey. Here is a simple version of a customer journey.

Identify Sales Channels: Determine the best channels to reach your target audience, such as inside, outside, or hybrid sales approaches. I am partial to an omni-channel approach where I utilize various methods like F2F meetings, phone calls, emails, and social media to engage prospects effectively.

Develop Sales Enablement Content: Invest in content marketing to support sales. Create compelling content like blog posts, eBooks, case studies, and videos to drive revenue growth. It’s important that you provide value through professional and personal growth to your ICP before you try and sell them something.

Set SMART Sales Goals: Establish Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Related (SMART) goals to guide your sales team and provide accountability to the benchmarks. My rule of thumb is if it can’t be measured then it’s not a good goal.  

Assign Minimum Daily Sales Activities: Implement daily sales activities for your team to maintain focus and productivity. I differentiate between meaningful and non-meaningful activity. Of course, all activity is important but meaningful activity is defined as interactive alike a f2f meeting or phone call which is different than sending a one-way email. Not all activities are the same. Monitor their progress to ensure consistency and effectiveness.

Craft Your Pitch: Tailor your sales pitch to highlight how your solutions can address your prospects specific customer needs based on your assessment. Focus on the relevance to them. An old friend, Park Howell taught me the ABT storytelling method that changed the game for me and my teams.

Prepare for Objections: Anticipate and address common objections through rehearsed responses called micro scripts. Listen actively to objections and reposition your solution effectively. Here is an example,

Prospect: “Let me think about it”,

Salesperson: Sure, thing! These decisions take time and I want you to be comfortable with them. Let’s schedule a call next week on Tuesday at around noon. Looking forward to talking to you then.

Finally, to nurture the lead to close make sure to send them something of value related to your conversations during the week.

Follow Up with Qualified Leads: You might be surprised to learn that only about 20% of qualified leads get followed up on. Consistent communication and follow-ups to stay top of mind with prospects will increase conversions.

Close the Deal: Seal the deal by addressing any remaining questions, delivering a quality proposal, and finalizing the sales process smoothly. Don’t be afraid to aks for business. I always reminded my teams that they earned the right if they did everything else.

Nurture Your Customers: Finally, remember to maintain relationships with customers post-sale to build loyalty and encourage repeat business. Staying engaged with them by requesting reviews, testimonials, and case studies to showcase successful partnerships and attract new clients.

The sale should mark the beginning of a long-term customer relationship, not the end. Prioritize customer satisfaction and engagement to drive ongoing success in B2B sales. Good Luck and Good Selling....