3 B2B sales strategies that bring in more customers

It’s no secret!

Selling to B2B customers is difficult.

Sometimes it can seem almost impossible.

Of course, selling has never been easy.

But the days when a salesperson was entirely responsible for influencing the buying process are long gone.

Today’s buyers prefer to research and select what to buy on their own, without any influence from a supplier:

Only 29% of buyers want to talk to a salesperson to learn more about a product,
57% of buyer decisions are made before buyers pick up the phone to speak with a vendor,
And, 34% of sales agents recognize that closing deals is becoming increasingly difficult.

Surprisingly, only 17% of the entire B2B buying process is consumed on meetings with potential suppliers.

Does this mean that the days of hitting your peak sales quota are over?

No, of course not!

However, to close new deals, you first need to understand the dynamics of modern B2B sales. Then, learn the sales strategies that will help you fulfill your set plans.

And that’s exactly what we’ll share with you below:

But first:

What are B2B sales?

B2B sales, also known as business-to-business sales, refer to companies that primarily sell products and services to businesses, rather than directly to 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 B2B sales strategies that were previously used are no longer effective.

But why? How has B2B selling changed?

B2B selling has become easier.

If a person needed a product or a solution, they would call a potential supplier and a salesperson would come to them with the best options. But if they were happy with the reviews they received in advance, they would make a purchase right away.

Simple, right?

This is a relatively simple and straightforward process, where the marketing department is responsible for generating leads to fill the sales funnel, and then the sales teams would be responsible for pushing those leads down the sales funnel until an actual sale is generated.

Pretty predictable.

But let’s compare this sales process to the customer acquisition process.

A person identifies a problem;
Researches online;
Does additional, additional research to uncover all potential solutions;
Turns to friends for recommendations and further checks what others are saying on social media, forums, online about a particular solution identified;
Google the specific solution and read some online reviews;
During the sales process, he might also see an advertisement and will access the ad about the solution for which he is looking for information;
Based on the information gathered, he will make a buying decision and only then
You call your company to finalize the sale.

Now, things have changed significantly!

Instead of being predictable, now sales have become more complex.

Companies have changed the way they purchase products and solutions. They now emphasize internal research that includes Google searches, recommendations from friends, or other online searches.

Today, buyers learn about products online, on websites, social media, or opt for a free trial.

In fact, buyers can go up to 60-70% further in their decision making process without having to contact a salesperson!

Consequently, the roles of sales and marketing teams have changed significantly, with marketing teams taking over many aspects of the sales process. This means that the role of sales has been reduced to assisting in the final stages of the process – evaluating potential alternatives and making the actual purchase.

This is a significant change and has brought with it a number of challenges that modern B2B sales teams need to overcome.

A new type of B2B buyer has emerged

According to several studies, B2B procurement has seen the emergence of many much younger professionals, aged between 18 and 35, who are now in positions that give them decision-making power in the buying process.

These young professionals are prone to using digital technologies in the buying process, in turn revolutionizing the way they purchase products or services.

Some of them prefer to conduct their own research, and use the information they find in the purchasing process. In fact, according to the Accenture survey, 94% of B2B buyers admit to conducting online research before making a purchasing decision.

And this number is growing year on year.

Modern buyers are highly skeptical of the sales and marketing messages they receive.

According to a Forrester report, 59% of shoppers prefer to research online rather than interact with a sales rep because the rep tends to push more of a sales agenda rather than help them solve a problem.

At the same time, sales reps continue to focus on selling rather than helping customers in their buying process.

No wonder 68% of shoppers prefer to interact with sales agents who listen to their needs and provide relevant information. And that 57% admitted they would prefer to buy from a salesperson who “doesn’t try to apply pressure when doing follow-up sessions.”

It’s also not surprising that sales strategies that include selling through social media channels tend to perform better than those that don’t.

Here’s another thing that’s changed in recent years:

Today’s shoppers take longer to make a buying decision.

Did you know that the average B2B sales cycle time has increased by 22% over the past five years?

One reason is that more people are involved in the buying process. Another is the wealth of information available on which decisions are based.

This, in combination with the changing sales process, is forcing companies to connect with customers and start taking care of them as early as possible until this is done by someone else.

Modern buyers pay close attention to peer recommendations.

Today, you can find various opinions online about almost anything.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that modern buyers use social media, forums and other channels to learn more about the potential solutions they are evaluating.

Recently, Forrester found that B2B buyers find 3 pieces of content about your company for every type of content your company has created. What’s more, they trust this information highly.

Google / TNS and Ogilvy found that viral (word-of-mouth) recommendations is the strongest influencer in the purchase decision, beating other channels such as a company’s website and interaction with the seller.

Finally, they are also aware of the risks associated with purchases.

Modern buyers want to feel confident that they have made the right decision and try to mitigate post-purchase dissatisfaction as much as possible.

All this results in a wide range of challenges for modern B2B sales teams to overcome:

The increase in available information allows prospects to go through the sales process on their own, without the need for any interaction with the seller. This has resulted in less influence of salespeople on buyer choice;
Sales and marketing teams become more misaligned, often confused about their role in the new sales process;
Buyers become skeptical of marketing and sales messaging, and the reliability of sales in general;
Social media and peers, rather than salespeople, have a strong influence on buying decisions.

How to overcome modern B2B sales challenges:

Fortunately, there are ways to overcome these sales challenges, and here are 3 of the most effective ways that can help you generate better quality results.

Embrace sales enablement to help customers make better buying decisions

Just because today’s buyers prefer to research online, doesn’t mean they can’t interact with you during the review and buying process.

Quite the contrary.

As you can see, B2B customers rely on content that guides them through the buying process, and helps them gain the knowledge they need to make an informed decision.

And while they can easily find the information, it’s not always the information they find that is the right information.

And therein lies your opportunity.

Create a content library that includes all of your assets that answer the most common questions your target audience asks at different stages of the buying process.

Once you’ve created a content library, with other colleagues on your sales team actively share this information with prospects.

But what kind of content should you share?

Several research studies have found that decision makers are more receptive to sales offers when they include case studies, industry articles, sales collateral and industry reports.

And if you still doubt how effective this is, consider the following:

95% of buyers select a vendor that has provided them with ample content to navigate through every step of the buying process;
68% of shoppers feel more positive about a brand after consuming content from them;
82% of shoppers have seen at least 5 pieces of content from the winning vendor;
And companies that develop sales enablement strategies generally earn 13.7% more contract value.

Prospective customers are seeing more of our content than ever before, and as we share the right kind of content, we’re able to generate better quality results.

Sales agents need to be the spokespeople for the brand

Sending relevant content to customers helps close more deals.

But, this isn’t the only way in using content to overcome modern B2B sales challenges.

Another way is positioning salespeople as subject matter experts.

Here’s why:

We know that modern B2B buyers are becoming increasingly skeptical of sales and marketing messages.

And that many B2B buyers want to interact with salespeople who listen to their needs and deliver relevant information.

Now, imagine how buyers would feel if your company’s sales rep (who is now also a brand ambassador), shared relevant information online?

Yes, you guessed it – such an expert is worth paying attention to!

Here’s how you can accomplish this.

Sales agents need to create and share useful, informative and relevant content to the buyer’s pain points in the form of articles or posts and share them on the company blog, company social media pages as well as personal favorites.

Align sales and marketing teams to work together to achieve the same goal

According to various studies, sales and marketing misalignment can cost companies 10% or more of revenue per year.

Not that surprising, right?

Think about the typical problems that arise from misalignment:

The lack of a clear definition of what a qualified lead means results in marketers potentially generating leads that sales can’t close.

When there isn’t a common content library it can result in sales teams not finding the necessary information about company assets to further process a prospect. And we’ve already discussed above how important the sales process is.

Irrelevant performance indicators don’t help improve the performance of each of the teams.

At the same time, 56% of companies with both marketing and sales teams aligned met their revenue goals and 19% exceeded them.

Other benefits of aligning sales and marketing include increased brand awareness, an increase in average deal size, and an increase in the company’s annual revenue.

And do you know the secret to accomplishing this?

Use content creation as a way to align both teams.

Research by Corporate Visions found that less than a third of companies include sales teams in content creation.

So here’s where you can start:

Create a shared content library that sales team members contribute to;
Marketing teams should educate sales teams on when and how to use content;
Sales teams should come up with their own ideas in content creation;
Organize regular meetings between these two teams to coordinate efforts and actions.

Here’s how you can do this:

Marketers create content around a specific challenge or pain point;
Marketing shares content with salespeople;
Marketing and sales share content via email and social media;
Salespeople take the content and create a PowerPoint presentation to use in a webinar;
Salespeople invite all leads who downloaded the content to a live webinar.

The reason this approach works is that sales agents not only take the content that marketers have created and use it to host a webinar, but they use it to move leads further down the sales funnel by addressing the specific needs that customers have and how the company’s product can solve them.

By now, the prospect (customer) has read the content, attended a live webinar, and seen how the company’s product solves their challenges – resulting in a higher quality and more qualified lead for the sales team.

If you want to learn more about the B2B sales process and close more deals check out our B2B sales course.