What does a career in b2b sales entail – key misconceptions and hidden truths.
The average tasks & responsibilities of a B2B Sales Professional aren’t what most people probably think they are. When you encounter a Sales Professional in your life it is almost certainly someone ready to ‘pitch’ you something. Sure, ‘pitching’ or explaining your ‘value proposition’ is a key part of how to influence your decision makers to see your point of view, however this skill is only a small part of how a B2B Sales Professionals spends their time.
Planning
Before the beginning of each year, it’s crucial to plan how you will reach your target. This involved identifying key accounts (businesses) in your assigned territory who would be an ideal fit for your product or service. Also understand the metrics behind how many deals you need to close in order to hit your target, therefore how many opportunities you will need to create, then how many meetings you will need to book to reach this target. There is a lot of data that goes into planning a successful year in b2b sales.
Prospecting
Often considered the least glamorous part of b2b Sales Professionals role is prospecting. It requires all those fundamental skills like grit, persistence and dealing with consistent rejection. Prospecting is ultimately a numbers game, but there is no point banging our the emails and calls if they aren’t quality as well. Ensuring you have a targeted message for each individual and business you try to secure a 1st meeting with, significant research needs to be conducted. This can include gathering information from their website, LinkedIn profiles, annual company reports (if they are a public business), recent media, etc. Then it comes down to professional persistence using a range of techniques via email sequences (that can include short videos), cold calling & LinkedIn engagement. The most successful sales professional prospect on a weekly and even daily basis, recognising if you don’t put in the hard yards to build a consistent pipeline.
Discovery
The fun begins when get the interest of a business and can put your problem-solving hat on. Understanding the motivations & priorities of the business, along with its current state, challenges, and willingness to change, is where a lot of deals are won or lost. A typical b2b sales process involves between 6-10 decision-makers, so ensuring you build relationships and discover as much about all of these people during your sales process is fundamental to your chances of persuading them as a group to choose your product or service.
Project Management
Herding your internal resources & external stakeholders to connect at key moments in your process and delivering them information that enables you to influence the outcome of the deal is an underrated art of a b2b sales professional. You will likely have multiple people in your business that are part of the team that helps you close a deal. There are often as many internal meetings planning the strategy of your approach with the potential customers as there are external meetings.
Presenting
All of the discovery and research will put you in the best position to deliver a tailored presentation to the people involved in the decision-making process. This is where you put in place the most traditional sales skills that people often think would make up the majority of a sales role – engaging an audience to demonstrate the key features & benefits of how your service can solve a current or future problem.
Contract Negotiation
If you have been successful in making it to the final vendors considered by the potential customer, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty art of negotiating a price and contract terms that all parties are comfortable with, whilst not giving up too much of your margin. A complex artform in itself, as it’s easy to give into what the potential customer requests, at fear of losing the deal. The better job you have done understanding how much value your product or service can provide as well as the key differentiation points you have against your competitors, will best place you to hold your ground and achieve the most favourable commercial outcome for you and your business.
Whilst each b2b product and service will have nuances to their sales processes, which may include other key activities such as networking and engaging with strategic partners, the above are consistent across almost every b2b sales role. Like many professions, your first few years when you begin to understand and master these fundamentals will very likely be your hardest. At least you will figure out quickly if this profession is or isn’t for you.