Running a B2B business model is very much different than B2C ones. In B2B, you have to be able to attract potential customers and make sure they stay there for a long time.
But winning customer loyalty from clients consists of companies and business people is not as easy as it seems. Therefore, you have to formulate a special strategy to increase customer loyalty and your B2B sales simultaneously. Here are 5 tips you can apply to your company today:
Offer result, not your products
In the B2C business model, you deal with end customers. On the contrary, running a B2B company you have to face the decision-maker of that company.
Dealing with such people is practically not the same as you deal with the end-customer. Facing a director or company owner, you have to offer benefits from using your product so your sales presentation should be up to the mark. They don’t care about your product details, they only want to know how your product will bring in more money later.
Make sure you use these kinds of sentences during your presentation:
- Our inventory system can help you save stock-taking time up to 40%.
- You can save your stationery budget up to 60% with a cloud server.
- Save two hours of time each day of your sales team for tracking leads.
Of course, those claims have to be backed with solid data. Add some study cases or customer reviews that satisfied with your service or product.
Research the customer beforehand
Before going to the meeting and present your product to the potential customer, it’s wise to do research about what is your potential customer struggling with recently. Did they have a financial problem? How big is the problem impacting their cash flow? And how your product can help them solve their problem?
By offering that kind of data, not only it will make you look more professional but also can smooth your way and increase the conversion probability, either from leads to customers, or even better, become your loyal customer.
You can research your client’s problems with these methods:
- Read their press release and financial reports
- Find out your client’s latest project or their recent partner
- Monitor your client’s social media. Sometimes, a review from an employee (or even ex-employee) and your client’s customer is valuable information to figure out what are they struggling right now
Don’t use cold calling anymore
Cold calling is a popular way to market a new product in a B2C business model. Bank and insurance companies are the most common company that still utilizing this method. But if you run your company on a B2B business model, cold-calling is not suitable for you anymore.
A positive response from the customer against cold calling is pretty scarce. Only 2 percent of them are willing at least to listen and not abruptly end the phone call or insulting the caller. From that figure, we can imagine how much positive response from the B2B business model.
Most decision-makers won’t have the time to answer a call from an unknown number. Even if they do, most of them will hesitate to explain how they run their company and will hang up on you thereafter.
Don’t ever use this method anymore and start using the method with a better success rate such as a warm-call or referral program. Your database might be reduced drastically, but your conversion rate will get higher.
Offer varied pricing strategy
In terms of price, B2B and B2C clients are not too different. They want the best product at a cheap price. We suggest you offer various pricing models for each of your products.
If you target the middle-level companies or start-ups, giving them a chance to try your product for free is the best way to go. This will let them figure out whether your product is suitable or not for their business. Let them try your product or service at least 2 ~ 4 weeks. Even better if you offer a freeware with basic features.
Another way is by offering your product in packages. With more features in a package, the higher the price will be.
Don’t sell your product lower than the basic price
There are a lot of salespeople who willingly lower their product prices if the client ends up buying it. Our suggestion is; don’t waste your time dealing with this kind of client. Look for potential clients that will buy your product on the price you offer. Even better if that client has tendencies to buy your higher tier products and become a loyal client.
If that kind of client is rare, it’s possible that you don’t have quality clients for your salespeople to work on. That ‘s why you have to consider buying a CRM system to help you search for more potential clients.
