Some really good insight on what the #B2B buyer is looking for & why:
Dan Sixsmith shares compelling stats from HubSpot’s 2024 B2B sales study: #AItools, #selfservice, and #customereducation.
Marketers & Sales pros must:
1. Listen
2. Use “We” vs “I” in communication
3. Do your homework
4. Know the market
5. Personalize content & focus on the customer
Hear Dan’s actionable strategies on “Sales is King.” podcast episode #167
If you’re not following it/him, start now!
https://lnkd.in/gW_wZrVC
Buyers won’t talk to sales until they’re ready.
- Even if they’re shopping
- Even if they’re in your ICP
- Even the right Buyer Persona
- Even if you’re the leading solution
Studies show again and again that buyers do not want to engage with sales reps until they are ready to start an evaluation process.
You can cold call them and have a chat, but if they’re not ready yet, it’s very unlikely to go anywhere past a meeting or two.
This is where most buyers are on any given day.
So what can sales reps do?
𝟭. 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗽 “𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴”
- Stop pushing so hard
- Find ways to add value
𝟮. 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝘁𝗿𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀
- Don't push sales meetings too early
- When they're not yet ready to evaluate
- Instead, offer value matching their stage
𝟯. 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀
- White papers
- Webinars
- Podcasts
- Meetings with subject matter experts
- Things that help them in their exploration
- Before they’re ready to start an evaluation
Show them that you’re there to give value, not just sales pitches.
Why? Because people are busy and skeptical.
They won't meet with sales until they're already convinced you have something that can help them when they’re ready for that help.
B2B SaaS buyers have already gone through 70% of their buying process by the time they decide to meet with someone from your team.
Kerry Cunningham, Head of Research & Thought Leadership at 6sense, shared these insights and more on 🎙𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 🎙.
Other valuable takeaways included:
- The reality of the Dark Funnel
- How to get deeper attribution insights
- How B2B buying teams make decisions
- And how to capture + act on buyer intent data
Listen to the full podcast here ⬇️
🔗https://lnkd.in/ekHwYQZv
✌️
The "Old" B2B Growth Playbook isn’t working any more and it’s time to learn a smarter, more efficient New #B2B Growth Playbook...
Businesses that understand this shift will win over the competition.
Deep dive into this fascinating marketing topic with Jon Miller (Marketo cofounder) and John Common (host of Growth Driver podcast).
The bedrock of sales involves profoundly understanding your audience's needs and desires.
This requires empathy, understanding their demands, and aligning your solutions to meet them. Check out this podcast to learn more.
#Sales#B2B#Prospecting#Successhttps://lnkd.in/g2JH7Q8S
The bedrock of sales involves profoundly understanding your audience's needs and desires.
This requires empathy, understanding their demands, and aligning your solutions to meet them. Check out this podcast to learn more.
#Sales#B2B#Prospecting#Successhttps://lnkd.in/gGb7xmVx
In this episode of the Small Business Origins podcast, we sit down with Richard Blank, CEO and Founder of Costa Rica's Call Center. Hear our discussion on outbound lead generation and sales appointment calling, inbound customer support, how Richard got his start, and some best practices for effective communication on sales and support calls.
https://lnkd.in/eNiFs_-h
For B2B sales people: Talking about risk during the sales cycle improves conversion rates, true or false?
I had a great conversation with Sean Tepper on the Payback Time podcast about sales from a buyer's perspective.
As an ex buyer, I can say with a high degree of certainty, it's true.
Sure, there are always situations when someone says "If I'd have spoken about risk, we'd have lost the deal". In my experience, in those situations, post-deal, it always ends badly.
Understanding risk from a buyer's perspective and talking through how you manage/mitigate risk is a great way of getting buyers more comfortable. No-one wants to get fired for making a bad call on a supplier's solution because they hadn't considered the risks.
What's your experience of talking about risk in the sales cycle?
Do you have any examples where it's worked massively to your advantage?
Thanks again Sean for being such a fabulous host and inviting me onto your show.
The bedrock of sales involves profoundly understanding your audience's needs and desires.
This requires empathy, understanding their demands, and aligning your solutions to meet them. Check out this podcast to learn more.
#Sales#B2B#Prospecting#Successhttps://lnkd.in/g9fTV_Qg
Unpopular opinion: Your can use your support team to drive sales.
There is content out there stating that if you'd use support or Customer Success for upsell, you're leaving money on the table. This can be true in some cases, but it needs to be seen in the right context.
The question to ask is: what is the goal and narrative of the sales process❓
If the goal is adoption or usage, like with a trial or other product-led approaches, then support and CS are probably well-suited to drive results.
If the goal is to maximize the contract value or closing rates, then potentially a traditional sales skillset is a better fit.
Especially if you offer a free trial, your support team can help you proactively convert these customers to paid. Actually, before hiring sales people and setting up a Sales Assist motion, this is the most pragmatic way to assess if this will have an impact. 💡
In most cases you already have a support team in place already, so there's no additional investment required. Also the role of Sales Assist is to guide the user to value instead of making a hard sell, so it fits well with the usual focus of that team.
So, if you don't have a sales team today and are considering to add it, then start by involving your support team more proactively and see how it affects conversion rates.
If you see impact, then you have much more confidence to create a separate team for that. 🚀
Check out the latest Growth Machines podcast episode in which Pekka Koskinen explains how they went through these steps as they were building Leadfeeder (now Dealfront)
https://lnkd.in/e4qxQj2w#sales#plg#support
Revenue Transformation & Thought Leadership Expert | We support curious business leaders to build the revenue organizations of tomorrow | Trusted by 100+ Clients | +193% Avg. Profit Increase in 1 Year
1.7 seconds... that's all the time you have to convince a visitor of your value proposition on your website. Here are 3 tips from our last podcast to transform your website into a sales channel 👇
Important to understand: 88% of B2B decision-makers start their buying journey on your website, and 50% leave without looking at any other page than the front page!
1️⃣ Tip number 1: Can I understand what you do and what value you bring to the world when I land on your website without scrolling?
Your main titles (H1 and H2) should clearly explain what you do and the end-results.
Example for us at Salesonomics:
• H1: OPTIMIZE YOUR B2B STRATEGY TO INCREASE YOUR REVENUE
• H2: Join the brave companies increasing their profitability by an average of 193%.
2️⃣ Define one clear call to action (CTA) for the website. This means identifying the main action you want your prospect to take.
For us, it's "Book a Strategy Call."
No matter where you are on our website, you should easily find and click on that CTA.
Having one focused CTA forces you to ask: who is my Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)?
You want your website to speak directly to the type of prospect that brings in most of your revenue.
3️⃣ Showcase real customer cases! Real?
Yes, the kind where you not only describe what you did but also highlight the end results (both quantity and quality).
Feature your customers' faces (video format is best) and let them talk about the challenges you helped them solve, rather than just the how.
You'll find good examples on our website (Link in the comment).
What best practices would you recommend for creating a world-class website?
We have with Mathias Härenstam at least 10 more tips on our last podcast on Spotify "The Art of Transforming your B2B Website into a World-class Sales Channel" (LINK IN THE COMMENT 👇).