B2B purchasing patterns are evolving at a rapid pace. In today’s industrial climate, sales and marketing tactics that worked a decade ago are clearly no longer applicable, nor cost-effective. This is because B2B buyers in today’s sales environment showcase qualities of both B2C and B2B customers – there is an evident rise in unpredictability.
This is because of improved access to industry expertise, product information, and competitive intelligence. In fact, data reveals that modern-day B2B customers perform an average of 12 internet searches before connecting with a potential vendor’s website.
This isn’t all, though. Because modern B2B customers may perform extensive research on their own, they tend to engage with sales teams considerably late in the purchasing process. According to available statistics, a B2B buyer is already 57 percent through their purchasing journey prior to his/her interactions with a sales person.
These changes reflect the future of B2B buying. To survive, B2B sales teams have to adjust their buyer engagement strategies in order to strengthen customer relations and increase sales.
Let’s dive into three optimum sales strategies that B2B businesses should adopt in anticipation of the future!
- ''You can’t ‘try’ to be successful at selling. It just doesn’t work. You have to commit to it and be willing to do what it takes to reach your objectives. Then, when things change, you have to go back to learning again.” -- Jill Konrath
1. Improve the efficiency of your sales function:
B2B buyers are more complicated than B2C customers, and their buying process is considerably longer. B2B firms must discover new methods to increase the effectiveness of their sales departments in order to effectively sell to these buyers.
In a typical B2B firm, sales people spend less time selling than they do on their allocated administrative responsibilities. According to statistics, sales reps spend 64 percent of their time on non-revenue generating tasks and only 36 percent on real selling. The first step in making your sales staff more effective is to understand how their time is being utilized.
Instead of wasting time on non-profitable tasks, your sales force should focus on the following:
- Creating buyer personas
- Scoring leads
- Consistently following-up on your existing customer
- Tracking lead activity on your company pages and websites
2. Provide interactive buying experiences for customers:
During one-on-one conversations, today’s B2B buyers are continuously distracted.They’re often preoccupied with emails, phone calls, social media notifications, and other digital platforms. This makes it difficult for B2B sales representatives to keep their prospects engaged throughout a sales session.
A complication of this kind necessitates B2B sellers come up with innovative methods to make buying experiences more engaging. Using interactive tools like ROI calculators is a good method to achieve this. Guided selling approaches, which demand prospects to take action or provide inputs, may also be used by B2B sellers. These strategies can help you keep B2B buyers interested in your products.
3. Adopt a dynamic selling strategy:
According to a Forrester study, 59 percent of B2B buyers would rather browse the internet than speak with a salesperson. Why? Because instead of assisting customers in solving their problems, sales representatives opt to promote the sales agenda. They’re more concerned with selling than with guiding prospects through the buying process.
As a result of shifting B2B buyer behavior and expectations, B2B sellers must employ a dynamic selling strategy. Companies use dynamic selling to match their sales strategies to their customers’ buying processes.
Each customer, or set of customers, goes through a distinct buying and decision-making process. Companies should make their selling procedures adaptable in order to satisfy the demands of specific consumers. This entails spending time learning about their consumers’ purchasing habits and developing connections with them.
Because no one approach can fulfil the needs of all customers, dynamic selling allows B2B businesses to analyze customer concerns, scale their workforce, and more accurately forecast future demands. To be successful in dynamic selling, you must be able to:
- Understand how your target audience selects buyers.
- Make the consumer the focal point of the sales process.
- Align your selling process with the decision-making process of your customers.
- Customers will be more knowledgeable about your products and processes if you use collaborative tools.
- Divide the closing of the deal into stages.
- Follow up on your leads at every level of the sales process.
- Create a dynamic selling process that is unique to each possible sale.