The Art of Presales Engagement in B2B

In the world of B2B sales, the presales stage is a crucible. It's where deals are forged or fractured, and where building trust and understanding with potential clients is paramount.  But with complex products, demanding decision-makers, and a cutthroat landscape, how can you ensure your presales team is engaging effectively and making the most of the B2B sales process? This article dives into the art of presales engagement in B2B, offering strategies and tips to transform your presales team into engagement champions. But before we delve into tactics, let's pose a critical question: In today's ever-evolving B2B landscape, what are… Continue Reading

How to Attract Better Prospects

What are the best ways and the best practices for attracting better prospects for your business? 40% of sales leaders claim that their top challenge to reaching their goals is to generate enough qualified leads through prospecting. A qualified lead is basically any company or individual who could become your potential customer based on certain criteria and the information they have provided. Note that there are no standard criteria for all types of businesses. You can develop your own criteria based on a number of factors. Sales teams want to focus on qualified leads in order to increase the success… Continue Reading

10 Ways to Make a Bad First Impression During Business Outreach

For people who are uncomfortable with direct sales contact, conducting business outreach might be a compelling alternative to cold-calling; however, when adopting business outreach strategies, it's crucial to take into account the impact a “strategy” may have on your brand. As an introvert, I've spent the majority of my entrepreneurial life mastering the techniques of inbound marketing. But avoiding business outreach forever isn't sustainable — especially in the early days where SEO is practically non-existent and your social-media followers primarily represent your "friends and family" circle. Research led by ValueSelling Associates, Inc reports that 48% of sales professionals are afraid… Continue Reading

Why Clients Shouldn’t Ask for Discounts and How Companies Should Handle Negotiations

Haggling for a lower price is so common that it could even get very challenging to tell the truth from the usual bargain. However, it should rarely be the problem of the salesman, business owner, or entrepreneur. Most of the time, it is the prospect’s problem. In this article, we are going to discuss the reasons why you should not ask for discounts as a customer and how you should handle price negotiations as a company. The graph above by HubSpot shows that there is a dramatic disconnect between the needs of the customers and what most sales reps tend… Continue Reading

5 Powerful Sales Prospecting Strategies for SMEs

I remember landing my first consulting clients by sales prospecting through the following channels: Referral LinkedIn Cold outreach The first one came from a friend providing consulting in a different field. He did reach out to me and asked if I was interested - so that worked out pretty well (a warm reference plus a vetted client). #2 was through LinkedIn. I signed up in 2007, joined a few groups, added the folks in my circle. I met some local peers who were building a community of a sort - similar to what “LinkedIn Local” is nowadays. #3 was a… Continue Reading

How to Align Your Business Strategy Based on Client Feedback

Client feedback is one of your most important weapons to design a bullet-proof business strategy that scales.  Feedback can identify operational inefficiencies, helping you allocate resources more effectively. It also validates your business model, indicating readiness for scaling. Negative feedback serves as immediate quality control, allowing quick rectification of defects or service lapses, which in turn safeguards your brand reputation. The feedback that your clients give you is extremely powerful because you are getting paid for it, meaning that they are willing to invest in you and your services or solutions make sense.  You just need to reverse engineer what… Continue Reading

Mastering the B2B Sales Process: How to Effectively Reach Decision Makers

Budget and timing are the two major reasons why businesses and salespersons lose B2B deals. This is according to a report from Chorus. This gives emphasis to the fact that the B2B sales process is a long one and it needs strategic approaches not only in budget and timing but also in other key aspects. To be successful in B2B sales means to have a deeper appreciation of B2B processes and sales stages, determining and reaching the decision-makers, and knowing how to go through the sales process efficiently. Understanding the B2B Process The B2B process takes longer than B2C since:… Continue Reading

How to Handle New Clients When Overbooked

Complaining about an influx of prospects may sound ridiculous to many. But in reality, growing businesses *can* attract new customers if they need to, considering they’ve been in business long enough to build a reputation or a portfolio, save some capital, and explore a couple of channels that get the job done. In this case, it’s more about investing a lot more into the channels that work and restoring the long-term pipeline in exchange for a short financial hit. Additionally, ongoing leads are not uncommon—it’s the lineup of truly qualified and suitable leads ready to adhere to a specific business… Continue Reading

8 Reasons Why You Should Start to Build a Brand ASAP

In the 21st century, with the evolution of digital and everything else that's happening behind the scenes, and with different companies popping up, building a brand is the best way to achieve a lucrative business venture. Brand building is extremely important for various reasons. But specifically, brand building can be positively impactful in establishing your business strategy, augmenting your recruitment process, navigating new opportunities, finding new ventures, enabling great PR, and so forth.  What is brand building? Brand building is basically about generating awareness about you and your business by organizing effective campaigns and using certain strategies that consider some… Continue Reading

Retaining Clients vs. Chasing Leads – Mistakes And Solutions

Are you spending too long chasing NEW clients instead of RETAINING your existing ones? A Harvard Business Review report claims that acquiring a new customer is 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one. I get extremely annoyed when my telecom or cable provider offers a better deal to new clients than what they would offer me. My cell plan is about 12 years old, and it often gets more expensive without bringing additional perks on the table.  What stops me from switching over? (Nothing really, I'm just lazy and it's a low-cost expense.) Keeping your existing… Continue Reading