How to sell in B2B? #1

“Trust the process and the results will handle themselves.”?

Trying to do sales without a plan is like shooting an arrow without a target. You take Your bow, draw it, tighten it, and release. All the motions are right, but what of it, since You were not aiming at anything? I feel that this is a good analogy to what I noticed many B2B companies consider running their sales departments. All the tools and movements are theoretically correct but bring no effect.?

Without aiming at anything You can not expect to reach any results. That is why at the very beginning of each sales activity You need to set up a target and the first step to that is to work on Your internal sales process.

While working on setting up a process for other companies, I like to structure it into 4 key components:

1 Groundwork - setting up the sales strategy.

2. Preparation and tool sharpening - statistics and measurements.

3. Relations - being an irresistible partner.

4. Quality - creating advocates.

In this article, I would like to present You with my vision for preparing the groundwork for Your sales process. It’s easy to follow and extremely beneficial. How does one get around it? I’ll break it down for You right now.

STEP 1 - HOW TO DEFINE YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE?

Are we a company that provides a product or service? Are we working in a SaaS model? Seems easy enough to define, doesn’t it? Most of the time it is, although I did encounter companies in the past where it wasn’t so easy to place them in a particular category. But for the sake of this article let’s not dig too deep into that.

Because what Is most important here is establishing what differentiates Your company from others in the same sector. For example, if You run a software development company, the definition of Your product can not sound like “we provide software services” or “we build custom software” because that’s exactly what each company in the sector might say. You need to find what makes You different and unique.

I like to think of it a bit like playing Texas Hold’em Poker (sticking to sports analogies). There are always a lot of players(companies) at the table trying to win a contract, and each of them has a unique set of cards. Some players fold straight away, some fold at the flop while others are betting, bluffing all in the hope of winning the pot. A strong hand is not necessarily a must-have for winning, but it sure helps Your odds. Those two cards are an analogy to the values Your player (sales rep) i getting into the game with.

It’s important to be precise. I was conducting this “searching for value” exercise within a company and when I asked the participants to name what values the company cherishes in their opinion, almost everyone left a note named “professionalism”, but all of the participants had a different explanation in mind. Someone closer to product design mentioned that for him professionalism = the ability to deliver better quality through unique components not available to others. CEO said that clients can close all their product needs within “one roof”, sales and marketing talked about the clarity and diligence during the estimation process. Same answers, different meanings.

And that's exactly what defining Your value is about. Digging deep enough with Your statements.? Imagine a client who is 5 years old and asks “why” as many times as he/she needs, to be satisfied with an answer.

So in search of Your companies value ask Yourself :

• What do we do?
• Who are we?
• What are we good at?
• What are we experts at?
• What is unique about us?

… and then ask Yourself “why?” as many times as is needed, to produce a statement Your future client will be able to understand and didn’t hear from any other company.

STEP 2: DEFINE YOUR ICP AND BP

However valuable Your product might be, You won’t be making any new clients if You are not pitching to the right audience. Coming back to the archery analogy, think of this as the target board set up at the end of each archery track.

If You use a generic approach You might be scoring lower points more often because usually those fields are bigger and easier to hit. Having limited shots at Your disposal You should always try to aim close to the center. That is exactly what defining Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and Buyer Personas (BP) is all about. Be very specific about Your audience because even if You miss, You might end up in the points.

So what are ICPs and BPs, and how are they different from each other?

In a B2B environment, an ICP can be defined as Your dream business date. A company that You would love to show off as Your partner, a company to be considered as a detailed representation of the perfect customer, the one You love to talk about. A company that is likely to benefit from your product or service the most and bring in a profit in the process. The ICP encapsulates firmographic (organizational demographics), environmental (external factors influencing the decision), behavioral (actions and interactions of potential customers), and other nonstandard features relevant to Your sector.

While ICP is your big picture, an aggregate sketch of the companies that get the most value from your product or service, a Buyer Persona focuses on individuals. So instead of statistical information about the company. BP is focusing on the challenges different team members are facing within the ICP and trying to align them with the value Your company offers, in order to try and help solve those challenges.

Examples:

ICP example: SME or startups (10 - 100 employees) in the USA - East Coast. Sectors like Legal compliance, fintech, ads and marketing, and health care. Key decision-makers are founders, heads of dept., and C-level executives in the same fields. Yearly revenues start from $20 million. These companies most likely use external software, provided in a SaaS model, and could benefit from a tailor-made solution.?

BP example: Daniel is the co-founder and COO of a +- $50 million legal company with a headcount of around 20. His team is spending a lot of time shuffling between different software providers and none of those truly fit their needs. His main concerns are the speed and quality of service they provide, he wants to close projects faster to make room for new clients. Daniel is most likely making a buying decision in cooperation with other founders. Other than providing valuable offers we need to make it easily sharable with the rest of the team.

Even if you have a killer product or service, nailing down whom and how to reach out to can be a bit tricky. Too broad, and you’re all over the place. Too narrow, and you might be missing out on good opportunities.

Be wary of aspirational targeting. It should be grounded in reality. While landing whales like? Amazon sounds great, is it reflective of the clients you’ve served so far? Your ICP should be crafted around real companies that have benefited from your product/service in the past and Your BP should be generated with empathy, not ego. So examine your existing clients and identify which ones best success stories for both parties involved.

STEP 3 DEFINE YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION

Step one is focused on internal factors and Your team, step two on external ones and the other players in the spectrum and step 3 is all about the interaction between the two. Having a list of values we need to understand that different values will be relevant to different personas. For example, if You run a SaaS targeted at team-building activities within a company. The CEO of Your target company might be interested in the statistics of how Your product affected the productivity of teams that used Your soft in the past, while the head of people might be focusing on the numbers behind the % of team engagement.

So how can we align the company values and personas? Strategyzer has a cool, effective, and simple method that can help us define the right values for the right people called Value Proposition Canvas which we should incorporate into our process. Strategyze themselves speak of it as a tool for Product Owners but in general, it can help anyone who is looking to create value for others.

Source : https://www.strategyzer.com/library/the-value-proposition-canvas

This tool has grown in popularity in recent years because it is simple to understand and extremely effective. In short first You analyze The “jobs to be done” by Your recipient and try to empathize with the potential pains and gains he or she might be facing. Then try to find relevant values You might bring in with Your product or service.?

Figuring out this connection is the key to effective marketing campaigns and prospecting activities because nobody cares what Your company is doing, but they do care what they are doing and how You could help them solve their challenges along the way. So if You care about statistics KPIs, and conversion rates, you need to care about value added first.

These 3 steps are crucial to the success of Your sales and marketing teams. You can conduct them easily within one week and will save You months of stress and uncertainty. In my opinion, if You are running a B2B company You MUST conduct those, if not You are losing opportunities and making life harder for Your Marketing and sales reps.