5 essential factors to build a B2B sales pipeline that delivers consistent revenue.

Mar 9, 2020 | Customers, Sales

 

Selling B2B  is a complex activity. Success takes time, effort, and persistence.

Therefore, to be truly productive, it requires the discipline of a repeatable process that is also measurable and scalable.

In order to achieve this outcome, there are 5 factors you should be building into your planning cycles.

Have a very clear view of your target customer profiles.

You cannot be all things to all people, you have to tailor the value proposition you communicate to the problems and aspirations of the target you are approaching. Many businesses have a number of key targets, keeping them clearly separate, with separate value propositions is essential.

For example, one of my clients is a printer, not a large business, but one that has a very wide range of services available internally, from original artwork, to various forms of printing, die cutting, assembly and decoration. They have two primary verticals they target .

  • The first is businesses involved in trade shows. Typically, those businesses leave their printing and stand design needs to the last, and that can cost a lot of money, leads to conflict and suboptimal outcomes. Given they have everything required under the one roof, the time from briefing to delivery is way shorter and usually cheaper than the business managing the various facets themselves.
  • The second is small and medium sized clubs, those with limited internal marketing and design resources, but a need for a lot of work done to a consistent theme. Again, keeping the work in house ensures a quality outcome at a competitive price.

Demonstrate your expertise.

There are as many ways to do this as there are stars in the sky, pick a few that are particularly relevant to your customers, and focus on them. Almost inevitably the best way is to give away information, in such a way that the receiver recognises that the information you have given is valuable, and if it is for free, how much more is there to be gained by working with you?. This might be in the form of blog posts, webinars, conference presentations, and many others, The best however, is having your current customers refer business to you, either directly, or via testimonials in one form or another. People trust other people, they will discount your own claims, simply because they recognise the self-interest.

Observe the 3 second rule.

Every sales call, conversation, post on your website, whatever the material, the most important part of it is the headline. If you cannot grab the attention of the audience with your headline, draw them into the body of the material so they can become more engaged in some way, they will be gone. You have 3 seconds of their attention, after which you have to earn every further second. This is particularly true in a sales phone call, that most dreaded of mediums. Be direct, and specific. ‘Hi, this is (your name) from (company name) we are expert at helping companies like yours with (target pain point) by (specific promise), and would like to take no more than 10 minutes to see how we might be able to assist you’. There are many variations to this, but simple, to the point, and outcome specific works, while making it as hard as possible to say ‘no’ to the next step in the process, which is often a meeting.

Remove the risk.

For a potential customer, doing business with you the first time has some risk. Irrespective of your pitch, the social proof you may have, and the relationship you might have built during the sales process, the decision to go with you rather than the alternative will be seen as having some element of risk. When you remove the risk, put them in a place where they have nothing to lose, why would they  not go with you? Most businesses have some sort of after sales service, replacement, or quality guarantee in place. When a customer is dissatisfied, there is some mechanism to address the problem, so why not make it explicit, a part of your offer, remove the risk. The potential cost is already factored into your price, it is just that you hope nobody uses it because you always have satisfied customers. Remove the risk from making the choice to go with you, and your sales will zoom! 

It is easier to get more from a current customer  than it is to find a new one.

How often we forget this, and devote resources too hunting out new customers, when there is potentially more business for you in the current client roster, their associated companies, and perhaps those to whom your current clients are happy to offer referrals. This requires that you build relationships over time, and those relationships are based on trust, mutual benefit, and importantly, your performance over time. My favourite measure of sales effectiveness is ‘share of wallet‘. It is a demanding measure, it forces you to develop intimacy with your customers business,  as well as understanding your own capabilities very well, so you can determine what is inside the wallet, and what is outside, and therefore not productive to chase. 

Call me when the experience I have can help address these challenges.

 

 

 

3 questions to juice up your sales productivity

Jan 16, 2020 | Sales

Word of mouth, the endorsement of a happy customer, is the best marketing you can have. We all know that, ‘Word of mouth‘ is the gold standard, the original social media.

Why then do we spend so much time and energy focussed on the next customer?

Finding, engaging and converting a new customer is way more expensive than working with an existing customer, one who has already experienced what you have to offer, and unless you screwed up, is usually more willing to talk to you than they are to someone with whom they have no relationship at all.

My preferred sales metric is share of wallet. How much of a customers business that you could supply, do you supply? The challenge in this metric is the definition of the wallet.

My second favourite metric is the likelihood that an existing customer will refer you to those in their networks that you may be able to assist. Sometimes this is expressed as a Net Promoter Score.

A ‘warm’ lead in the parlance, is a nascent relationship to be nurtured until such time as there is a need. It will not always  lead to a sale,  but it does get your foot in the door with the opportunity to be on the list when and if the products you have may be useful.

Making your current customers successful is the best marketing you can have, as they will talk about your contribution.

How much of your investment in revenue generation is aimed at leveraging the success of your current and past customers, Vs finding new ones?

Many businesses rely on what I call ‘reactive marketing’.

They respond to the phone call, enquiry from their websites, generic email blasts, even cold calling. When you calculate the conversion rates for  these sorts of leads, they are not great, but always chew up considerable resources. Moving to a pro-active, customer centric strategy in almost all cases increases revenues while reducing costs.

Three simple questions.

  • What more can I do to assist my current  customers?
  • Who do they know that you might be able to assist?
  • How much of my revenue generation investment is aimed at customer retention?

 

Need help thinking your way through this maze, let me assist.

 

Header photo courtesy Lars Menken via Flikr

 

 

 

The huge power of relative risk in sales.

The huge power of relative risk in sales.

Jun 28, 2019 | Communication, Sales

‘Risk’ is an emotive word, it immediately conjures up danger, and an instinctive reluctance to avoid it, if at all possible.

Relative risk is often used in a selling situation as a means to motivate the potential buyer to take that last step, and buy, immediately. The risk may be of missing out, of a price rise, or of an unpleasant event happening, and many other things that might incite a sense of urgency. Unless you apply some added, and not usually made available logic, you can be seduced by the size of the stated risk, and buy, when it may not be a logically consistent decision to do so.

When you see the word ‘Risk’ in a brochure, offering research numbers that demonstrate how much this new ‘whizzo’, newly developed after much research,  will reduce your risk, do not take them at face value.

For example, if I was selling a new medication aimed at older fathers, of which there is an increasing number, I might use something like the copy following.

‘For men of 50 fathering children, there is an 18% greater chance of those children suffering seizures, than children of a father of 30′. New ABC medication from XYZ company can more than halve this risk’

This first part of this copy would be alarming to any man in this group, but misleading. It is a relative risk, comparing one group to another. It does not tell you how likely it is that an individual child will have a seizure, which is an absolute risk. The second part, promises a huge reduction in this risk as an inducement to buy, but again, very misleading, because the reduction in risk is relative.

Had the copy been complete, it would also have told the reader:

The child of a father aged 30 has a risk of seizure of .024%, 24 out of 100,000 children.

The child of a father aged 50 has a risk of seizure of .028%, 28 out of 100,000 children.

(Data source new scientist November 2018)

An increase of 18% to the risk of children of fathers over 50 suffering seizures, compared to that of fathers of 30 sounds shocking, but when you consider it is 4 children in 100,000, it is less so. Equally, the reduction coming from new ABC medication is less impressive when viewed as an absolute reduction, from 4 to 2, and the (poor) statistician in me tells me it is within the boundaries of statistical error in any event.

Daniel Kahneman in his great book ‘Thinking Fast & Slow’ uses a number of examples similar to the one above, and in addition would apply the question: ‘How much would you pay to reduce the risk of your child having seizures from 4/100,000 to 2/100,000’? to get a better measure of the price difference between a purely rational decision, and an emotional one.

Emotion sells way, way better than rationality, so the usual way to present data will almost  inevitably be relative. Watch out for it, and ask the appropriate questions before you jump to a purchase decision. 

 

Header cartoon courtesy of Scott Adams and ‘Dilbert’ https://dilbert.com/

To win, reverse the sales funnel!

To win, reverse the sales funnel!

May 31, 2019 | Customers, Sales

 

There is no gravity in a sales funnel!.

 Prospects do not fall down a sales funnel in an orderly manner, defined by some marketers picture of their customer journey.

Prospects climb up a chimney that gets narrower and more difficult the higher you go. There are points of friction, decision points, diversions, and often life just gets in the way. When a prospect falls out, sometimes they return, at another time, to another place in the ‘chimney’, and sometimes are never to be seen again.

At each point in the climb, the marketer has to get a ‘mini-yes’ from the prospect. Are they going to continue the climb to a conversion? Or is the friction greater than their motivation to climb further?

There are 3 points of extreme friction you need to address as prospects climb

  • Why should the prospect engage with you? This may be a PPC ad, a download, simply looking at a second page on your website, or not throwing away that brochure you mailed them. This is the first major point of friction, and conversion rates at this point are usually in single figures.
  • Why should the prospect buy this product in preference to any alternative solution to whatever problem they are facing? Most problems have many potential solutions, and many suppliers, so you need to be able to demonstrate why the solution you offer is superior to alternative solutions.
  • Why should they buy the product/solution from you, rather than one of your competitors? If the only answer to this question is price, you have just lost.

We kid ourselves if we think of this process as ‘gravitational,’ exerting gravity downwards towards the transaction. The process is the reverse of gravity, there is pressure from many angles to squeeze prospects out of the chimney, and it takes sustained effort to support them in their climb.  

 

 

The strategic alternative to Sales and Marketing

The strategic alternative to Sales and Marketing

May 8, 2019 | Marketing, Sales

I rarely disagree with the musings of Peter Drucker, genius that he was.

However,  I need to take issue with one of his more quoted musings: ‘The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous’

The objective of both Sales and marketing is to generate a transaction, and to do so in such a way that the customer never goes anywhere else for subsequent transactions.

Transactions generate revenue, so both Sales and Marketing are a part of the one continuous process:

Revenue Generation.

Everything in an enterprise is aimed at providing the means to generate revenue, without which, there is no future.

Stop considering Sales and Marketing as separate functions, they are not, they are both components of the wider task of generating revenue.

The hidden magic of the triggering event

The hidden magic of the triggering event

Jan 31, 2019 | Communication, Marketing, Sales, Strategy

What is it that acts as the catalyst that initiates the journey a customer will undertake that may end up with a transaction?

If you knew this, you would be in a situation to be very specific about your marketing, both the nature of the offer, the way you make it, and to whom you communicate it.

Customer personas are a great way to focus resources in a manner that delivers productivity of your marketing efforts. The more details and representative the persona the  better.

It works, and works well, but is not the whole story.

There are events and interactions that occur in peoples lives that are not logically accommodated within a persona. There is a point in the journey a customer makes towards that purchase not considered with anywhere near enough weight.

That is the situation, the event, the ‘thing’ that acts as a catalyst to create the beginning of the customer journey. The event that suddenly creates an awareness that there might be value in considering options, and that the current solution, whatever that may be is inadequate.

This is a ‘triggering’ event. 

A friend is a real estate agent.

She knows the market cycles very well, not just the economic ones, the seasonal ones that tell you that there will be a lull in activity in the market over Christmas, which will pick up again when things get back to normal in February.

Seasonal.

However, over Christmas lots of people will find themselves with family and friends staying over, for the night, for a week, and suddenly, the house they have is too small, the kids no longer can sleep two to a bed,  and one bathroom is no longer enough. That becomes a triggering event for some to start the process of thinking that perhaps a bigger house is necessary, or that they really need to do a tree change. As a result they start being unconsciously sensitive to any real estate ads that may pop up, where before they would not have even seen them.

Is my friend better off starting her advertising in February, when all the other agents are starting, in the expectation that the market is waking up? Or should she advertise in January, when there is  no activity, nobody else is advertising, but the possible users of her service are in the middle of their ‘triggering event’ and highly sensitive to suddenly relevant messages?

I know where my money would be.