5 Best B2B Sales Techniques

 

Selling to businesses is an ever-changing kaleidoscope of ideas, techniques and co-operations to keep your sales funnel full! It can enhance or destroy careers in a very short time period.

If you’re still selling in the same way you did last year, you’re out-of-date and run the risk if being fodder to those companies advancing in the sales world.

For example, we recently surveyed the sales professionals who receive our weekly sales tips (30k+) and from the B2B sector 21% said that they like to use video in some way, shape or form to help them solve business problems and to help with decision making.

So a fifth of your clients want this.

Do you include this as part of your sales process?

Your B2B sales strategies need to be constantly updated if you are to even maintain your position in the market place, never mind enhancing it.

Here are some B2B techniques that will help you stay relevant in your industry:

Businesses buy results

1) Be aware that companies don’t buy your products or services

In today’s B2B world, we need to see that our products won’t do the selling job for us. Gone are the days when our customers couldn’t get products like ours only from us.
Instead, customers today have more choice than ever, so the products you sell are only the conduits to a bigger picture.

People buy the results your products will bring for them and their businesses. Therefore, the first B2B sales technique you need to employ is to sell the short, medium and long-term results your customers will get from using you.

Businesses buy based on your reputation

2) Recognise the impact social media has on image, brand and confidence

Like it or loathe it, it has a massive impact on how people will make decisions, either through looking at product reviews or picking up the vibes of peers who have experienced your services before them.

You need to embrace the concepts of how people seek solutions these days, so have your ear to the ground, build your reputation through the social world and accept that today’s B2B sales world is driven by us being social animals.

Businesses buy based on your personal brand

3) Become an influencer on LinkedIn

With over 600 million people on the professional, personalised website, your approach to LinkedIn can enhance your chances of building your reputation in your market or leave it stone-cold dead in the water.

Being an influencer entails showing people your value upfront, encouraging people to approach you instead of vice-versa and building your reputation for quality and knowledge in your industry and your world. B2B sales techniques today can only be enhanced by having a strong LinkedIn presence.

Most modern Sales Courses cover these topics now and will help you to become the kind of person prospects would want to link up with, and your whole sales world will be revolutionised.

Imagine sending your prospect a personalised video – they’ll be blown away with the professionalism and the trouble you went to put it together.

Stand out!

Businesses buy experts

4) Know more about your competition than your prospects do

Not much is worse than a customer of yours saying they are leaving you for a competitor, and you never saw it coming.

There are many ways to keep up with the competition these days and no excuses not to. B2B sales skills involves being aware of what is new in your market, counteracting their advancements with ideas of your own and helping prospects see how they would be better off with your solutions.

Businesses buy because you’ve done your homework

5) Be professional in your researching

If you think you’ve done all the research on a company by simply looking at their website, think again.

B2B sales techniques these days involve deep-diving into the companies you are looking to partner with, analysing their goals, their vision, their ideologies, their pains, their strengths and their future directions. It is possible today to find out everything you need to know about a company and the buyers there by deep research.

Enhance your B2B sales skills by doing the necessary leg work before contacting them, and you’ll be able to give them many more reasons to talk to you, other than you having a quality product.

The best B2B salespeople today think less of trying to sell their products and more about enhancing the long-term relationship with their customers. This involves looking at the long-term results your customers will enjoy by using your products and services, and concentrating on selling those results instead of highlighting your products.

If you still feel like you could do with more Sales Training, then check out our Selling Skills Training, or as mentioned above.

Rememeber to take a look at our popular portfolio of Sales Training Courses.

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training