Customer needs and customer expectations are constantly evolving and staying atop these changes can sometimes be challenging for B2B sales teams. Sales teams who have strong processes in place that allow them to identify what their potential customers are looking for or what they need can help drive quicker sales ROI and initiate the right kind of prospecting conversations.
In the B2B tech marketplace, customers and prospects are spoilt for choice given the large numbers of tech solutions available to help them drive their own goals. This is where B2B sales teams can try to create a difference by providing their prospects with a more seamless and convenient buying journey.
If sales people do not have the right salestech or data points to help them identify their prospect’s core needs and pain points, they won’t be able to offer the right guidance and triggers to help drive a successful sale.
A lack of quality data or processes at the prospecting stages can lead to many missed sales opportunities.
Here are a few things that B2B salespeople need to remember or identify about their prospects to drive successful sales conversations that lead to more conversions.
Understanding their Product and Service Needs
Potential customers and prospects in B2B tech already have an existing tech stack that helps them power their current processes. But every team experiences lags when it comes to processes or features that can boost or optimize their ROI.
Knowing whether your prospect is experiencing product related difficulties or service related challenges with their existing tech vendors and providers can enable a salesperson to drive future conversations using the right tactics and triggers.
For instance, some prospects may be wanting to look at other platforms that offer specific features that their current platforms might not have while others may be seeking a tech vendor or platform that provides 24/7 support and care.
Knowing what exactly your prospect is looking at when they are in-market for a solution can help salespeople drive personalized conversations that touch upon their actual pain points thereby helping them gain more traction through the prospecting cycle.
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Prospect and Customer Feedback
Customers and prospects want more ease and convenience from their tech stacks. The ability to use newer platforms easily, adopt them with reduced difficulty and integrate it with existing salestech and martech systems are common elements in this market.
Salespeople and marketers can drive better conversations by building out more feedback loops through the typical B2B buying journey with the aim of understanding more about their future customer needs. Online surveys, interactive demos during which sales people can keep a 10-minute bracket for Q&As to ask the prospect what they really need, or a quick email questionnaire are some of the ways for marketers and salespeople to gather more insights.
Sales and marketing teams that work together to gather this data through their brand website and form-fills can use this feedback to power the next conversation and drive better impact during the actual sales cycle.
Problems Diverse Team Members Face
For the most part, in B2B, buying decisions are taken by multiple team members. Taking a cue from this, when trying to pitch or sell a tech product, sales people can use this to fuel their overall sales cycle and prospecting efforts. Talking to not just buying decision makers but the people within the prospect account that will actually be actively (potentially) using a product like yours will help identify base level user needs and expectations. A CMO for instance can take the final call on what martech to invest in, but choosing a martech platform without taking into account what the rest of the team feels or what their literal pain points are with the existing system can lead to more havoc later.
Sales people, when initiating team level conversations that include actual users of the product from the prospect side can fuel their sales pitch with better tactics based on what key features of their product can enable or help the prospect’s team work better.
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What’s Cooking Over at the Competitors Space
A big part about knowing your future customer also lies in knowing who their key competitors are and what type of products they use to fuel their growth. Your prospect is focused on two things: getting ahead (faster) and leaving the competition behind. Understanding the segment you sell to also involves doing a deep dive into your top prospects and their competitors.
Sellers who can pitch their products as something that can give their prospect an added advantage with a competitive edge in the market will grab more attention. For this to be effective, B2B salespeople need to fuel their sales pitches with relevant use cases and case studies and explore different kinds of content formats (like audio/video content) to drive impact here.
End Note
B2B sales can get complicated at times. But with the right insights, intent data and sales processes, sellers can limit the guesswork in their sales cycle and drive faster conversions. Knowing what your prospect needs and dovetailing internal processes to help grab more data around this can enable better sales efforts and boost faster buying decisions from the prospect side.
