While on the one hand buyer behaviors and customer preferences are rapidly evolving, on the other hand, so are the typical sales standards for B2B and technology salespeople. To meet changing market trends, sales teams today need a combination of better data, stronger processes and the right salestech to help drive true ROI. Beyond this fundamental is the need to derive newer ways to identify potential markets and prospects while redefining your go-to-market structure to help achieve core business goals.
Read More: SalesTechStar Interview with Cory Cummings, CEO and…
What should B2B salespeople be focusing on more as they prepare for a new quarter in 2022?
A few tips and observations based on market trends and industry perspectives:
Diversifying your Sales Channels
Customers and prospects today have an active online presence but not everyone is equally active across every available online channel. Knowing how to tap into a potential audience set by digging into your sales intelligence to identify which channels your top prospects are most active on and how they prefer to be contacted (whether by email, phone or a plain LinkedIn message) can make all the difference in a crowded marketplace.
Sales reps that spend time on identifying their target accounts and prospects to know who to actively go after for a period of time (for instance, let’s say, two months) can strengthen their outreach and prospecting efforts by identifying the right selling channels that can pull those prospects towards having sales conversations.
On the other hand, diversifying existing channels to help meet changing industry trends and customer preferences as one unit will be useful in increasing market presence and getting the brand in front of the right audience before putting prospects into an eventual nurture campaign.
For this to be optimized it is crucial for sales leaders to help their teams identify their addressable market and then hone in on the most relevant sales channels to pursue sales conversations on.
Understanding that Customers Want One Point of Contact
The typical B2B sales structure, processes and even hierarchies should be reevaluated for teams looking for ways to optimize their overall operations and sales initiatives;
In today’s largely digitized buying and selling environment, customers are already exposed to large buckets of information and may only need the input of a sales rep to ascertain or clarify few aspects of a product/service they are evaluating.
But this is where product sellers can transform the overall B2B buying experience. Customers today want to have a 24/7 access with the brand they deal with and this can also mean that they would prefer to have a single point of contact to help them with all areas of the service.
Read More: SalesTechStar Interview with Cory Cummings, CEO and…
Sales reps who are taught to play the role of end-to-end account executives that are not only responsible for closing deals but also ensuring the product or service is delivered as per each customer requirement have an added advantage in the market. They can easily tap into their existing accounts to fulfill upselling / cross selling opportunities, moreover, when they are responsible for the end-to-end delivery of the product or service, it automatically gives them the opportunity to nurture their accounts and run referral campaigns to get existing customers to refer their peers from the industry too.
With sales leaders today constantly talking about the need to adopt customer-centric sales and marketing models, this part can play a crucial role in strengthening sales output as trends evolve further.
A key takeaway here: now is the time to adopt more than just a selling mindset to succeed in B2B.
Identifying Sales Bottlenecks or Constraints and Implementing the Right SalesTech to Help
For lean teams, knowing where bottlenecks exist and what is delaying sales and operations from moving towards closures quickly can help strengthen processes and improve Sales ROI. Bottlenecks need to be addressed for sales leaders to identify the right sales automation, this can help reduce the load of manual tasks and allows sales leaders to know what needs to be automated so that sales teams can focus on actual sales and customer success or final product/service delivery initiatives.
There are so many ways for sales teams to fix constraints in their processes. For lean teams that are pressed for time but need to get on more discovery calls, having a recorded version of their product demo that is sent as a link to prospects for them to view it can be a solution, for instance. For sales teams who are losing out on the value of follow ups, automating follow up cadences based on past audience behaviors and interactions can be a useful strategy.
Read More: SalesTechStar Interview with Jeremey Donovan, Head of Revenue Strategy at Salesloft
2022 will continue to be a year of evolution when it comes to both salestech and B2B sales models. As sales teams get accustomed to newer salestech features and evolved sales processes, it will be crucial for business leaders to focus on associated aspects like upskilling and training of their sales teams to extract the best value out of their new sales tools and sales plans.
