10 Tips That Will Help You In Closing More B2B Sales
Selling to businesses is a completely different game than traditional B2C selling. It carries uncertainty and you have to be innovative in your approaches.
In this article, we are going to share tips that will actually help you in closing more B2B sales and grow your business. Before moving forward let’s first understand what B2B sales mean.
What is B2B sales?
B2B sales or business-to-business sales refers to sales in which businesses sell directly to other businesses instead of the consumers. B2B sales are complex in nature and the salesperson is mostly dealing with a team of professional and educated buyers.
B2B products are usually high value or expensive and the sales cycle can take a longer time due to requiring approval from many decision-makers. The B2B sales could involve anything from selling raw materials for a product to a manufacturing company to selling some services to a business.
- Research about the business before contacting them
Not many salespeople realize how making a personalized approach to a business increases their chances of closing the sale. The research can include products they offer, new products in development, are they a startup or closed a round of fundraising and find the problems they are facing currently.
You can subscribe to their newsletters and be up to date on the current news and events of the business. You can also read their blog for a better understanding of their product offerings. You should then create your proposal according to the above research. The main target should be to show how your product can solve the challenges they are facing.
- Meet in person
Face to face meetings help you explain your product offerings better to your customers. Phone calls or emails aren’t always helpful in clearing the doubts of your customers. They also don’t help much in building trust or better relationships. That’s why you should try to meet face to face as much as possible.
- Give more options in your proposals
Many salespeople make the mistake of only offering one option in their proposals. This forces the buyers to look around for more options. Your proposals should have at least two or three options. These proposals should have different values and offerings. The decision-makers can then choose the option they find best for their business.
- Show customer reviews to your prospects
Customers are likely to believe something about you if it is coming from someone else. These could be reviews from your past and current customers or customer referrals.
- Monitor their social media profiles
Social media platforms allow you to see what’s going in the minds of your prospects. This will come in handy when you are having a conversation with the prospect and also help you be on the same page.
- Use the right sales tools
Tools such as customer relationship management help you manage your prospects, check on the pending deals or meetings and manage everything involving the sales process. This helps in reducing your focus from unimportant processes and giving more time to developing relationships with your prospects.
- Follow-up with cold leads
Many times your customers are interested in your products but not in the position to close the deal at that moment. You should follow up with such old leads from time to time instead of junking them. You need to know that b2b sales is a long game and building good relationships with your prospects is going to help you close the deal in the end.
- Stand out from your competitors
You should always have something unique to offer than your competitors. This will help you get recognized and close the deals faster. Also, it is important to understand that once your unique offering is public it is only about time your competitors will copy it.
That’s why it is important to always be a step ahead of your competitors. Although it won’t be easy to always have something unique to offer. You should also have sufficient knowledge of your competitor’s products and be able to explain to your prospects why your product is better than your competitors. This will help weed out competitors and help you close the deal faster.
- Be Persistent
Persistence is something that will take you a long way in sales. On average you should expect 8-10 attempts before you can make contact with a prospect. Even if you are able to set up a meeting it is going to take many follow-up attempts before you can close the deal.
Unfortunately, many salespeople give up after just one or two attempts. To close a deal it is important to be able to handle the rejections and be persistent in your attempts.
- Make contact through social media platforms
Social Media websites can be a great way to build relationships with your prospects. It helps you get noticed in the eyes of the prospect and will likely lead to them picking up your call instead of letting it go to voicemail.
You can do various social media actions such as liking their tweets and replying to them. Then connecting with them on LinkedIn. This will help you get recognized by the client when you try to make contact with them.
Wrapping Up
Always remember that your prospect is not interested in a long sales speech but they want to know how your product makes their life easier and helps their business run smoother while solving their challenges.
You should also focus on building relationships with your prospects instead of just trying to close the deal. In the end, one thing you should try to get right is being persistent in your attempts. Snoozing out of any process will not help you at all and make you lose.