Engineer Processes, Technology, Roles & Innovation to Capture Elusive Revenues.
While “selling is selling”, consumer sales are a far cry from business to business (B2B) and require a raft of different skills, processes, policies and approaches.
In B2B, often “decision making ” depends on faceless executives, consultants, committees, advisory groups and influencers – individuals you cannot meet to learn or understand their issues
With uncertain or shifting budgets, B2B sales cycles are often protracted or extended. Personnel involved in purchasing often change between start and finish. Other challenges of mandatory multi vendor purchasing policies, competitors “buying business”, supplier risk management policies and cost barriers of moving to a new supplier, further complicate and frustrate B2B sales success.
To make things even more challenging, the B2B buying process has fundamentally changed. Prospects are spending more time on the Web doing independent research, obtaining information from their peers and other third parties. Increasingly, prospective buyers rely on confusing studies, opinions and scuttle buck found on online, creating a “tyranny of choice” prejudices and beliefs.
While companies are “meeting” prospective buyers earlier than ever, sales attempts to engage with every early-stage lead can be premature or detrimental.
Research indicates that only in the last third of the today’s purchasing process do buyers want to engage with sales reps. This changes the role of marketing; instead of generating the lead and moving on, today’s marketers must integrate and synchronize efforts throughout the buying process, providing potential buyers with high quality content that is contextually relevant. More than ever, B2B buyers are in control. Marketing and Sales must understand their needs and react in a relevant and timely manner.
Overarching these issues is constant pressure to reduce cost of sale, remotely manage sales personnel, implement sales force automation, hire and new sales personnel, and make strategic decisions largely dependent on internal perceptions which may differ from prospective buyers’.
Selling B2B in Tough Times’ program shares world’s best practice in the art and science of selling to corporations, businesses and government in today’s economic environment.
