Sales are crucial to being able to make a company stable and profitable. Many B2B businesses today share common challenges, including the difficulty of finding leads and making a sale. B2B sales, known as “business to business sales”, refer to companies that primarily sell products and services to other companies and not to consumers (B2C).
B2B sales tactics have changed significantly in recent years, putting more pressure on businesses. Even though B2B sales processes are long, and several decision makers are involved, it’s not rocket science and if you’re ready to work hard and implement a few tactics, you’ll quickly see an increase in sales.
Below we share 5 proven B2B sales tactics to generate high-quality sales leads, build strong relationships and experience a bump in sales.
Create Effective Proposals
B2B proposals can be quite intimidating but it’s a crucial component of boosting your B2B sales. It is all about sending a compelling presentation and encouraging prospects to see your value and choose you. First, you need to have a proper understanding of the potential client’s problem to increase the likelihood that they approve it.
Gathering all the information you can and knowing how to structure a proposal is essential to increase your chances of securing a deal and creating profitable partnerships. The main pillars of a strong B2B proposal are to include details about your company, tell them who you are and what you can offer, show expertise by and let them know that you’ve done your research and identified their pain points, and finally present the solution along with an overview of your project fees and descriptions.
Focus on Building Stronger Relationships and Creating Trust
No matter who you sell to, personal communication is vital. It doesn’t matter if you sell to a company or a private person, there’s always a person at the other end of that communication. Creating a close relationship is therefore very important in all forms of sales.
To succeed in B2B sales, trust is as equally as important as building strong relationships. B2B sales often require a higher level of trust and credibility than B2C sales. When trust in a company gets broken, things can go south pretty fast.
You can build credibility by highlighting your company’s experience, industry expertise, and customer testimonials. You can also build trust by being transparent and honest about your product or service, and by being responsive to any questions or concerns your potential customers may have.
Consider the Concept of Social Selling
Social selling is about how you as a B2B business can integrate social media into your sales work. A lot of companies today struggle with challenges such as decision-makers being difficult to get hold of and difficult to book meetings with. They are also tired of receiving “cold calls” and vice versa and there are many salespeople who do not enjoy this type of sales work.
With social selling, the seller instead uses, for example, their personal profile on LinkedIn to position themselves as knowledgeable in their field to attract incoming leads and to proactively search for potential customers and make contact with them. A big advantage of this approach is that the customer is warmed up before the conversation or meeting – and it may also be on the customer’s initiative.
Increase Your Visibility On Google
Increased visibility in Google should be something that B2B businesses should take into serious consideration. The reason is simple – you expose your website, and thereby your business, your products, and services at the moment a potential customer is looking for answers to questions you can help them with.
In short, it can be said that there are two ways to improve your visibility on Google. One method is what is called search engine optimization, where you work with different methods and approaches to get better placements in what is called organic search results.
The second method is simply to advertise on Google when there are searches for terms relevant to your business, products, and services. This can be achieved through Google’s advertising tool, Google Ads.
Follow up and Stay in Touch
B2B sales often involve longer sales cycles than B2C sales, so it’s important to stay in touch with prospects and keep the conversation going.
This may involve sending follow-up emails, making calls to offer additional information or resources, or setting up face-to-face meetings to discuss their needs in more detail. By staying in touch and providing valuable information, you can help keep your B2B business top-of-mind and increase the chances of making a sale.
Also, in B2B sales, it is important to offer personalized solutions that are tailored to the specific needs of your target group so why not offer customized pricing or product bundles, or provide additional support or training to help your customers get the most out of your product or service?
Final Words
As a B2B business, it’s easy to fall into some common traps when it comes to sales. However, by structuring clear goals, spending time on building strong relationships, and staying in touch, you can capture and keep the attention of prospects and increase your company’s bottom line.
