6 tips that can help you close a B2B Sale

6 tips that can help you close a B2B Sale

A B2B Sale process is very similar to a battle, where the competition is the enemy and the customer is the battlefield. If you want to win you need to know all these elements and define a clear strategy. In this article I will give you six elements that we consider necessary to close a B2B sale.

What is B2B Sale?

In contrast to B2C sales, or business-to-consumer sales where a business sells products or services to consumers, B2B sales involves one business selling products or services to other businesses. In general terms a company can sell to other company products (raw material, products to distribute, etc.), services (marketing, finances, software development, etc.) or tools (software).

The figure below illustrates de B2B sale process and the next sections explain them.

Know your customer and their pain points

By knowing your customer I don’t mean knowing the name of the company, the owners, business area, etc. I mean putting yourself in the customer’s shoes. You need to understand how they work, what system they are using now, what they’re going through or pain points, what they are looking to accomplish with the system, and what they want out of the solution they want to purchase. The best way to get all the details is through a well-researched questionnaire that you use as a guide throughout the meetings with the customer.

Know yourself very well

You cannot sell what you don’t know. It is very important that you understand how your product functions, and the specific features that will help solve your customers’ problems. If you don’t know your product you cannot answer objections or project the confidence required to get your customer to open up. Training is the key element for you sales reps to know the product.

Know your competition

Attending a sales meeting without knowing your competition is like driving blindfolded. Your chances of closing a B2B sale increase exponentially if you know who you are going against. Here are some tips to achieve this.

• Rank your competitors in order of importance.
• Compare your products with theirs.
• Take note of the strengths and weaknesses and develop a strategy to leverage on strengths and downgrade your weak points.

Focus on selling solutions

Some service companies, like organizations offering software, provided closed systems with a certain degree of flexibility. The problem is that no two customers are the same, so; there will always be customer needs that the closed system cannot satisfy. One of the keys to Laceup’s success in closing B2B sales is our focus on providing solutions and not systems. By knowing the customer and the competition, we can have a clear idea of the customers’ pain points that the competition does not address and this will give us an advantage to close the sale.

Never say no

Never saying no doesn’t mean that you are going to lie to the customer. It means that you are going to allow yourself to work with them on any issue or question they have and, if you don’t know the answer to the question, you will seek the answer from maybe someone in your company that knows a little bit better, or someone with more experience who might know about the particular question the customer is asking.

Utilize successful past experiences

Customers tend to be wary when you offer to customize the solution to meet their specific needs and the way they operate. The main tool you have for gaining customer’s trust and rebutting any objections they might have, is the successful B2B sales you have made in the past. A good reference is key to gain customer trust.

I hope this article has been helpful to you. I will continue to post information related to warehouse management, distribution practices and trends, and the economy in general. If you are interested in this article or want to learn more about Laceup Solutions, please subscribe to stay updated on future articles.

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