How to Succeed in the B2B Marketplace
Using Social Media
There are far too many companies that do not effectively leverage the power of social media. It can be used for more than just marketing your products or services. When it comes to B2B sales, you can use social media to gather intelligence about your competition. The top social media platform to use for this purpose is LinkedIn. By following brands in your industry, you can find out what they’re doing to achieve success. There simply is no reason to reinvent the wheel when you can obtain a lot of information that can be used to develop and execute a strategy for your business. Gathering and analyzing competitor data doesn’t mean you’ll use it to mimic your competitors. It’s simply a strategy for making informed decisions.
Offering a Unique Value Proposition
Researching Your Prospects
There was a time when cold-calling was a relatively effective way to find B2B leads, but that’s no longer the case. What’s more important now is conducting a sufficient amount of research to make sure you know what a business needs and what will make them likely to respond. By conducting a comprehensive amount of research, you’re more likely to have the information need to engage with prospects intelligently. You can more effectively offer a solution to the problems that aligns with their mission, vision, values and initiatives. Although research can take a lot of time, it can also have a high ROI.
Closing the Sale
Most people don’t have a lot of time to waste. Instead of wasting time with long sales speeches, it’s important to cut the fat and speak directly to the needs of the business. This is a great way to increase your chances of closing the sale. Your focus should be on the fact that you understand their problems and you have solutions. By getting right to the point, you also have a greater chance of closing the sale. The bottom line is that what worked years ago won’t necessarily work today. Businesses want solutions and they don’t want you to waste their time. Also keep in mind that just because you don’t close a sale now, doesn’t mean the prospect won’t remember the value offered later.
B2B sales take longer and there usually isn’t any way around this fact. A key aspect of B2B sales is relationship building and that won’t change anytime soon. In fact, it probably won’t ever change since companies tend to stick with vendors they trust. This can be good for you in the long run.