What is B2B Sales and How to Master it This Year

Over the next year, we will see salespeople of every industry working harder than ever to generate leads and convert as many as possible. With B2B sales being so competitive, it’s important that you get ahead of the competition. But, it’s not that easy. There are so many different ways that you can enhance your B2B sales techniques. But, will they all help you master B2B sales? Luckily for you, we have compiled a list of the best strategies that you can use to master sales this year. Before we go over how to master your B2B sales strategy, let’s go over what is B2B sales and how it differs from B2C sales.

What is B2B Sales?

Business-to-business, or more commonly referred to as B2B, is when a company sells their product or service to another company. Companies like Hubspot, Salesforce, and Oracle are all B2B companies that sell their services to other companies. As you can imagine, B2B companies can charge a lot more for their products and services, and companies are willing to pay. Because of this, companies require a lot of guidance and need to fully understand what your product or service offers before they sign a deal with you. Therefore, B2B sales professionals have an important role in the company. Without a B2B sales team, companies often struggle to drive as many deals as possible. And, clients may have a hard time fully understanding your product or service. Companies that have strong sales teams are often able to retain clients for longer and they can have better relationships with clients. 

B2C vs B2B Sales

Although B2C and B2B sales may seem similar from an outside perspective, they’re very different. And, as a B2B sales professional, it’s important to understand the differences. Since B2B products are often very expensive, the sales cycle is exponentially longer. Like I mentioned earlier, prospects require a lot more hand holding and guidance than B2C prospects. You’ll have to work harder to show why your product is better than your competitor’s. And, how you’ll support them throughout their time using your product. This process typically takes multiple meetings, sales calls, a ton of emailing back and forth, and more to reassure the prospect that your product is the best solution for their needs. As a new salesperson, it’s important to have a thorough understanding of how B2C sales differs from B2B sales. Then, you can use this to your advantage. Far too often salespeople start to get frustrated when prospects take a long time to decide or have a lot of hesitations. But, if you show them how their life will be easier with your product, they’ll be more likely to convert.

How to Master B2B Sales 

As you probably know, the B2B sales process is lengthy. Without mastering your process, you can quickly fall short. To master B2B sales tactics, it takes a lot of trial and error, research, and discovering all of the options out there. Doing a simple Google search for “best B2B sales tactics” will yield billions of results. So, it can be very very difficult to dig through all of the options and choose the right tactic. Fortunately, we have been able to create this list of the best sales tactics that will help you master your B2B sales techniques and hopefully close more deals.

Understand Your Sales Cycle

Without understanding your sales cycle, you can easily become overwhelmed. So, before you even begin selling to your first prospect, it’s crucial to understand your B2B sales cycle. Every company will have a slightly different sales cycle. So, it’s important to thoroughly understand every step along the way and how you can improve your prospect’s experience throughout the cycle. Once you start selling, you may notice that a lot of prospects are stuck at a certain point in your sales cycle. You can look into why this is happening, follow up, and hopefully lead more prospects through your sales cycle. 

First Impressions are Everything

In sales, first impressions are everything. Your prospects are most likely looking at multiple options, so if you’re late to your first meeting, then there’s a good chance they won’t choose to go with your company, even if your product is the best. Not leaving a positive and lasting impression will greatly reduce your chances of successfully converting prospects into paying customers. If you do make a mistake during your first meeting, it’s not the end of the world. Depending on the mistake, you can apologize and be honest. Don’t let it ruin the rest of your meeting. If you blow them away with your product, they might even forget about the mistake. 

Stay Up-to-Date With Trends

As a sales professional, you need to stay up-to-date with the latest sales trends. But, you also need to stay up-to-date with industry-specific trends. If you notice that your competitor’s start using website personalization to enhance their landing pages, then you should talk to your sales and marketing teams to see if you can also enhance your landing pages. Even small differences between your company and your competitor’s will decrease your chances of closing the deal. This is why it’s essential to be aware of sales trends before your competitors start using new tactics. If you want to stay up-to-date, it’s a great idea to follow blogs that focus on sales and marketing trends. 

Work With Your Marketing Team

Sales teams that work closely with their marketing team have the upper hand when it comes to understanding clients and optimizing sales cycles. Collaborate and brainstorm new marketing initiatives and sales strategies that will benefit both departments. Supporting your marketing team will help you deliver better sales pitches and answer prospect’s questions easier. Plus, it can be embarrassing if your marketing team is running a social media promotional campaign that you’re not aware about, and the prospect brings up the campaign in your meeting. Companies that have their sales and marketing teams working closely together will understand their client’s pain points and provide solutions. 

Enhance Your Sales Demos

Sales demos are often boring for both salespeople and clients. Looking to enhance your demos? Creating interactive demos might just be the solution you’re looking for. An interactive demo is essentially a version of your demo that guides prospects through how to use your software, without the need to create an account. A demo software can be used to create personalized interactive demos that you can use during a live demo and send them a unique link to their personalized demo so they can rewatch and show others. Personalizations include adding in your prospect’s logo, employees as users, key data points, and more, to help them envision what it would be like to use your software. Interactive demos can also be used for marketing purposes, like including in an email onboarding sequence or even embedding the demo on your website. The options are truly limitless when it comes to creating interactive demos. 

Talk to Other Salespeople

Talking to, comparing strategies, and getting advice from other salespeople can help you take your sales tactics to the next level. Talking to salespeople that work at your company will help you learn about common objections that prospects may have, and help you prepare your answers to the objections. Being more prepared will increase your chances of closing a deal, since you are able to reassure any of their hesitations. On the other hand, it can also be helpful to talk to salespeople who work at other companies. Don’t share confidential information, but you can share advice and learn new tactics that you have never thought of before. Plus, it can be helpful to have someone that you can confide in that’s not at your company. Sales is a tough career, so it’s important to build solid relationships around you.

Get Feedback

As a sales professional, you always want to grow and improve. A great way to do this is to get feedback from your prospects. Whether your prospect converts or not, you should be following up with them. Of course every follow up process will be different, but it’s useful to ask them for feedback at some point. If they didn’t convert, you can ask them if they went with another option, if there was anything you could have done better or differently, or simply ask why they didn’t choose to go with your company. Don’t be too pushy, it’s best to frame this conversation as you’re looking to improve and that you take their feedback seriously. If the prospect did convert, you can ask what made them convert, if they looked at any other options on the market, and again ask if there was anything you could have done better or differently prior to them converting. It can be hard to hear negative feedback, but I promise it will help you be a better salesperson. The best salespeople out there have heard a ton of negative feedback, and they use it to improve their sales tactics.

Generate New Leads

Generating new leads is difficult. Oftentimes salespeople will find themselves in a rut, unable to generate enough new leads. What makes it even more frustrating is generating leads, but they’re not all qualified. What if I told you that there is a fool-proof way to generate highly qualified leads that are already in your sales funnel? With the help of Visitor Queue, you can do just that. Visitor Queue is a B2B lead generation software that can identify the companies that visit your website. We provide company information like history, location, industry, company size, and more to help you qualify them as a lead. View how they were acquired, time on pages, and the pages that they viewed. Plus, we provide contact information for their employees, including email addresses, phone numbers, LinkedIn profiles, and more. Since the company is already on your website, you know that they are interested in what you have to offer. Use the contact information provided, in addition to their visit information, to understand exactly what they are looking for, and reach out. Interested in the data Visitor Queue has to offer? Start your 14-day free trial today.

Try New Things

There’s nothing wrong with having a few tactics that you know that work. But, it can be a problem if you are constantly depending on these tactics and are not willing to change or update them. Often we see this with sales reps who have a lot of experience. They think that their sales tactics have worked for them this long, they must have cracked the sales code. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Trying new things is the only way to know that your sales tactics are working. How are you going to know if there’s something better out there if you never try? Or, if you try something new and it doesn’t work, you’ll know for a fact that your current tactic is better. 

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Most sales professionals use LinkedIn to connect with prospects. But, LinkedIn Sales Navigator takes your lead generation to the next level. It’s a sales tool designed to help sales reps of any industry discover new and qualified prospects. LinkedIn Sales Navigator will search for prospects that meet the criteria that you set. Which makes them highly relevant to your company. Then, you can reach out and start connecting with them. It can get pretty expensive, but it’s well worth the price if you know how to use it.

Final Words

Although a career in sales is very rewarding, it’s difficult to perfect your sales skills. If you’re not sure where to start, I would focus on one or two tactics on this list. Don’t overwhelm yourself trying multiple new tactics, as you won’t be able to see which tactic is the most effective and which may not be working in your favor. Discovering what works best for you can be a lot of trial and error. But, once you find a few tactics that work, you’ll be golden. If you have any questions about how Visitor Queue can help you generate qualified leads, don’t hesitate to reach out.