A startup or entrepreneur just starting out often wonders what B2B sales and industry is and how it could benefit them.

Let’s start with the basics, what does B2B stand for? This abbreviation stands for Business to Business. You have already understood that the customer of your company is no longer a simple consumer but a much larger entity. This sector concerns a lot of wholesale companies or those who provide services to companies (translation, website development etc…) 

B2B sales can be divided into two segments: 

1 – Online 

2 – Active 

Today, we will mainly talk about the second segment, as this is where we specialize and therefore have the most expertise. The active sales segment includes all actions and communication such as: business meetings, participation in trade shows, making cold calls. 

The more we move forward, the more things are happening online, this is a fact, and it’s not just about sales or business. But you shouldn’t bury active selling too quickly, because it’s still very important, and handled skillfully, this segment will give you very big opportunities. It is not a coincidence that this profession is considered the oldest, since ancient times people had to learn to sell and trade their products and services. 

As far as cold calling is concerned, this practice may seem obsolete to attract customers, but in reality it remains one of the fastest and most effective sales ways. During this call you are not only promoting your product/service or company, you are also gathering valuable information and most importantly you are getting closer to the customer and their needs. (Of course this will depend on the skills of the salesperson and if the prospect is willing to listen).

We can definitely say that B2B sales are necessary, and even indispensable to all companies, in order to attract more customers and to develop its business successfully.

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Having trouble figuring out the difference between the “Business to Business” and “Business to Customer” sectors? Stay tuned to this article and we’ll explain it all to you! We could talk for hours about the many differences but today we have chosen to focus on the 3 most important ones. After that you will have a more concrete vision of these 2 sectors that will allow you to move in the right direction. 

1st difference: The purchase decision  

It is quite obvious but important to remember that a simple consumer and a company do not think in the same way when they make a purchase 

In b2b the act of buying is a much more codified, long and thoughtful process. Things can sometimes take a long time, most purchasing decisions in companies include several people, 2 in 70% of the cases but sometimes up to 5 actors can enter in this decision. It is therefore necessary to be patient and strategic in order to have instant answers to the questions of the different decision-makers, whether it concerns the price, their needs, etc.)

In b2c things are much less long and complex, there is obviously a marketing work upstream to reach the right target and of course some customers will think about their purchase but a large majority will be likely to buy by impulse on a sudden and compulsive desire! However, unlike companies, customers will have a fairly small budget and will often only buy your product once. 

The decision to buy is not the same, you must adapt your strategy or call upon an external company such as ours, which will be specialized on the b2b sector. 

2nd difference: Communication and Marketing

You have now understood that a customer who buys on behalf of his company must think about his purchase and explain to his superior why it is necessary for the company. While the average consumer will buy by impulse, the way to communicate and sell your product/service is totally different 

In b2c, you have to prove every single thing you say. Highlight how your product or service will save your target time, money or resources. Documenting and quantifying what you propose is very important, because thanks to this, the company in front of you will see concretely what you bring to them and why they should choose you.

These steps are necessary, because the company that will buy your product will weigh the pros and cons, calculate the investment cost, the potential gain, etc. In b2b, it’s completely different, no need to justify yourself or talk about numbers, it’s better to go straight to the point, the customer doesn’t want to read a list or a product sheet, you have to put forward the main effect of your product in a way that makes them want to. Here is a perfect example:

Here, the Ferrero brand sells you its Nutella product by putting you in a situation and provokes a desire. 

To sum it up in one sentence, in b2b explain and list the benefits of your product with a sales pitch and supporting graphics. In b2c, catching the eye provokes envy with pictures and slogans. 

3rd difference: The 2 markets are not the same size 

The b2c sector is much larger and more developed than the b2b sector! 

It’s simple, the b2c sector includes the entire population. So before you think about your first product you have 8 billion existing customers, then as your product/service you decide to launch the target gets smaller. If you decide to market a basketball jersey of the local club in your city, the target goes from 8 billion to maybe a few hundred or even ten thousand possible customers. Once your product is finished, you will personalize the marketing as much as possible. With the previous example, you will address the basketball fan, who supports the local team, etc. So the market is very large to begin with, but it’s your product that will set the actual size of your market.

Moving on to the b2b market, it is often smaller, especially if your company sells very specific products or services. If you are a translation company specialized in Italian language, there will not be many companies interested in your services. Your SEO, content and marketing strategy must be meticulous so that you address the right audience in a very precise way. 

To conclude 

Now that you know the difference between b2b and b2c you have all the cards in hand to carry out your projects. 

Even if some products and services are marketable in b2b and b2c it is important to keep in mind that the way to promote them will not be the same at all. It is therefore necessary to adapt your sales and marketing strategies. A successful company in the b2c sector may not make any sales in the b2b sector due to a lack of experience and unsuitable techniques. 

I thank you for this attentive reading, I hope that this article will have more and especially made you understand the differences between the b2b and b2c sector. Do not hesitate to contact us, we will be happy to answer your questions.

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Don’t stick to the comfort zone!

Since the existing clients are the source of continuous business,  they should have a special importance to the company. Keeping them satisfied and gaining their loyalty are the keys of keeping the relationship going. Nowadays a lot of companies get stuck into their shells because they feel safe in their comfort zone. They have to be more brave to expand. Instead of only working with old clients, They can make their team expand to reach out more clients. Eventually, they will have kept their current clients and got in touch with more prospects.

Keep the brain cells fresh!

If you’re in the industry, you have to grow. You must increase  your limits and reach out to new customers. The good thing about new customers is, they come to you with new different tasks. Working with them will make you have a fresh look to what you’re doing. This will lead you to gain new abilities and even grow your network! This rotation of work will keep your team’s skills fresh and creative.

More available preferences

By getting new clients and also keeping your old clients, you’ll be able to decide whether if you want to go for new tasks or take less risk and stick to the old ones. For several reasons your old clients may hurt you. Since you don’t want to lose your clients, you’ll behave them gentle and try to get the job done smoothly, but some of them can abuse your nice behaviors. They can be bossy or rude against you. They can even put your company in a tough situation by making payments in an unpunctual way. While you’re dealing with their challenges they can treat you like an “a**hole”. In these type of situations, you can lead your crew to new customers with their new challenges. So that your business won’t be depending on only one customer. This will help them to gain their motivation back again.

Loyalty

Foreign or local, if the deal is working with a company, you have to ensure mutual trust first. You may expand to new markets, abroad in order to work with more clients and grow your business. Unfortunately, the clients abroad are more likely to switch to another company from their point of view, it can be more convenient to work with a company from the same country. They should be convinced to stick together by providing high quality service, budget solutions etc.

Conclusion 

Growing rate of companies depends on a good selection of client preferences and this requires courage to get out of your comfort zone. Spreading to new regions would put extra effort on your team and it won’t be easy. If you think your team is capable enough for getting in touch with new clients while working with current ones. You don’t have to stick in your comfort zone anymore and keep pleasing unnecessary needs of your current ones, which sometimes might interfere with your vision and values.

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Social Selling… What is it?

Social selling is a -must have- skill to keep on track in the B2B industry. Social selling isn’t about social media at all. The thing is, managers used to have variety of methods for reaching out their customers back then. Because the key of social selling is building a relationship with the customer. The company has to gain the trust of the customer. Then it would be much easier to close the deal.

The difference between social selling and marketing

Social selling helps you to build a relationship between manager and customer on a personal level. Marketing is pretty different. It basically keeps relation between companies, various entities.  These two methods have a lot in common but the main target is different, one targets are companies and the other one tries to get attention. But if we’re speaking about B2B selling, both two methods could taken advantage of.

The target is not closing the deal!

Instead of getting huge values, making customers loyal should  be the priority. Happy customers should come first. They would reference you to others as well thus leading you to more revenue and more successful business. If you target the happiness of your customers, people will have positive opinion towards your company. Additionally, this would also increase your network. All of these will boost you to climb up to the top of the industry.

Finding the prospects effectively

While looking for customers, instead of pushing your products on every platform, you can make some research about where your target customers are. After finding them, you can examine their way of working, their methods and finally you can build a strategy to make a deal with them. It would be much efficient because you will have known the customers needs with more details.

Informing the prospects 

According to LinkedIn’s sales solutions research, B2B prospects feel more confident to contact if the salesperson gives them certain amount of valuable detail. The most important thing here is, the information must be reliable. Because 94% of B2B customers make online research already before reaching to you.

Where to start now?

Focusing on increasing the connections while using up to date social networks should be the primary target. In this field, people have to know you as productive and trustworthy instead of someone who is only trying to sell something. Then helping people out would come first than closing the deals. Following the connections while promising high quality content will make you close the deals in more healthy way.

Final Say

Social selling is a new method that seems permanent. It’s not going to fade away soon. If it’s done right and coordinated with old sales methods, the relations between the customers and the company will be long-term. Instructing your team about the requirements of social selling will make you adapt to this efficient method. Following the connections while promising high quality content will make you close the deals in more healthy way.

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B2B sales can be extremely effective if the right strategies would have followed. Unfortunately like in every industry, some mistakes can happen here as well. We will examine the most common ones in the following text below. This will improve your methods and hopefully fix your mistakes if you’re making already. Let’s start;

1-)Showing One Option 

One of the most common mistake that salesperson doing is showing only one offer to the client. This would ruin the deal that you’re making because every client has certain budget for their own business. Instead of giving one option, it’s always better to show low, middle and premium options. Some B2B clients may chose to work with lower prices but on average, it would increase the sales.

2-)Avoiding to See Face to Face

By 2019, B2B sales mostly occur online or via phone calls. This method works for most of the deals but in fact, this may not be the right way for huge deals. If the business is on a big scale with big companies, the client would probably want to meet in person. Setting up a meeting and making the deal would worth the effort!

3-)Taking Step Back on Prices 

Customers sometimes may bargain you about the prices. Always keep that in mind when you lower the pricing, you also reduce your value in the industry. Being stubborn about high tier pricing can lead you to close big scale sales.

4-)Showing B2B Deals/Offers Primarily

Keeping the prices at low is not always a good strategy. Because a good customer looks for quality instead of price. You don’t have to be afraid of setting the right value of your work as it deserves. Keeping the offers or discounts for later has always been a better choice. If you’re confident with your work, you may not even have to make an offer. Big scaled companies are mostly get attracted by this kind of method.

5-)Rushing the Client

In B2B business, it’s been always a good idea to keep in touch with the client. However, they are not machines eventually. You have to leave them some time to let them make their decisions healthier. Rushing them would be a huge mistake that could even pull your sales to the bottom. Patience is the key rule of B2B business. If the offer is valuable, they’ll make up their mind and reply to you positively.  

6-)Pushing to Reach Out Everyone

The logic behind this is pretty common among the B2B companies. It’s basically “If I reach out 100 companies I can  get 30 customers.”. The thing is the quality is more important than the quantity. It’s always been more efficient to focus on potential customers by making a market research, rather than struggling with a lot of them. It will be easier to manage plus the feedbacks will be better.

7-)Not Telling The Services Clear

The companies have to know that what is your team offering them clearly. You better show these companies your values on front and as simple as possible. You have to be ready to answer them fast when they ask you what is the deal about. This won’t be difficult to experience by practicing and some research.

Final Words

By considering these tips, you should be less likely to make common mistakes like the other B2B companies. Basic market research from the beginning and collecting some data about your clients would make you start from few steps forward. Make sure to keep aware of the sales industry.  

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6 Benefits of Outsourcing a Team for Sales and Marketing

Do you need to grow your company in a new market? Do you want to do business with other companies? Maybe you need someone to analyze a market that you have targeted.  You can achieve these with much lower price and with professional service with outsourcing.

1-)Customers will be satisfied about sales

According to Deloitte’s 2016 Global Outsourcing Survey, 78% of respondents felt positively about their outsourcing relationship. Statistics don’t lie. Let’s look at the reasons of why companies prefer to work with outsourcing companies.

2-)Fast and efficient entrance to the market

If you have a fresh new teamand want to get involved to the market as fast as possible, collaborating with an outsource company would be the best option for you. If your team is not experienced enough for sales, you can benefit from outsource marketing companies’ experiences. Especially if you are new in business you have to work with a professional team, you can’t risk your limited time and resources.

3-)Open for fresh ideas

You may sometimes need for a 3^rd party point of view about your work and new ideas about the market. Since they work with several companies, they are more experienced about the market. This means they can look to the market from different directions. Outsourced B2B sales companies ensure that you will expand in your current targeted market in the most efficient way.

4-)Easier to control

If you outsource your marketing needs, you will have less responsibility because you won’t have to manage a whole team! The outsource company will take care of it for you. Only thing that you have to do is to stay in touch with the outsourcing company. If you want to have a reliable and also budget marketing/sales service, outsourcing companies are offering you these with latest techniques and strategies.

5-)Comparison with in-house

In-housing has its own benefits! In this concept, having internal employees will make you feel more control on your business. You will be able to check the progress of your team’s work more frequently.

Outsourcing companies have certain concept of business with their clients. If you want them to do a particular thing, which is different from their methods, it may cause some difficulties. Eventually, in-housing brings you more control, but this advantage has a cost. Instead of all this you can outsource a company and get your job done in a more flexible way.

6-)About the costs

As it’s shown above, there’s a huge gap between a salary of an employee and the cost of outsourcing. This huge difference can’t be dismissed.

For an example, you hired an employee for marketing and you’re not satisfied with the results. You can’t just stop working with them, you have to pay for his or her salaries and maybe some compensation according to your agreement. On the other hand, these are no big deal for outsource marketing companies. If you’re unhappy with the way they are working, you can just part your ways with themin terms of agreement.

The Final Say

If you’re deciding between outsource and in-house. You should run an eye over the available options and make the right decision for you. While in-house is granting you more control, outsourcing is more flexible, cheaper and less risky.

Feel free to contact us anytime.

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