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There is a lot of discussion about the need for B2B prospecting and quite a few products here with lead data. First, to give some context, we do professional services for the Cisco Enterprise Collaboration platform, Network infrastructure and Security, so our target market is Mid-Market and Enterprise customers. There are a lot of good resources for B2B sales, but I want to keep it concise here in this post!
Two things we will focus on in the coming days: various Tools and Actual prospecting. More applicable to outbound sales.
To start, I want to share some quick takeaways from what I have learned about making B2B sales
- Focus on quality of the leads vs quantity. You do not want 5000 credits every month or 10000. Start small.
- Qualify the customer if they are suitable for what you have to offer.
- Making sure you have something concrete (products, service, something else) to offer your prospects goes a long way!
- Lead data types are essential, for Example, Full Name, Job role (Decision makers), Email, Phone Number, Location, Linkedin integration etc. Integrations go a long way!
- Select the right CRM and ensure you can see all the customer interactions across various channels, email, phone, and SMS, for a particular customer in the CRM.
- Do some research on who you are targetting, even if you have to reach out to them via email (avoid spamming), but my preferred way is by phone call.
- Research the company and any related news, and spend some time researching on LinkedIn.
- Work on an initial pitch, and rehearse it a few times. Keep it short. It can be a simple CTA starting with a zoom / Webex meeting (I prefer meeting people in person, you cannot beat that for large $ value sales).
- Dedicate days for sales, which can be half a day with you and your sales team and the remaining half for some action items.
- Make sure to maintain a proper sales pipeline before things get out of control.
- Relationship building over a call is essential as you often interact with someone at the reception, assistant, or secretary. So be prepared to get past that person and be connected to your prospect.
- Be prepared for the worst but always give your best when on a phone call. Someone is always having a bad day and may hang up on you or be rude; you can always politely say goodbye and move to the next prospect.
- Every time you do, you get better at it, and the relationships you build will give some talk time, a much-needed booster, and maybe some much-needed breakthrough.
- B2B Sales cycles are long, so there is no such thing as instant gratification as the $$$ figure depending on what you are selling. Not sure how many of you have driven 100k or 1m+ in a single sale, but it is a different ball game. The effort required is proportionate but worth it.
We will do a couple of Livestreams on B2B prospecting data tools in the coming week so stay tuned. Please make sure to subscribe to our Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/saastribe