Selling isn’t easy, and it's only harder in B2B settings. B2B sales, with its big-ticket deals, can involve complex, long-drawn-out processes and multiple stakeholders. Your business may be doing just fine, but you can always think about small fixes to make your sales teams more effective. Here are some common sales mistakes and how your team can avoid these:
1. Chasing the wrong leads: If you try selling your offerings to someone who has no real need for them, the deal will never close. And even if it does, they are highly unlikely to buy from you again. Then, why spend time trying to convince low-quality leads, when there are leads that have a higher propensity to convert?
Tip: Use a sales qualification tool to prioritise your leads from those most likely to convert to least likely. This increases your chances of closing bigger deals faster.
2. Forgetting about existing fans: It is more profitable (and cost-effective) to keep an older customer than acquiring a new one. Repeat purchases help ensure predictable revenue while up- and cross-selling help grow variable revenues.
Tip: Continue nurturing your old customers and keep an eye out for up and cross-sell opportunities during discussions.
3. Missing the target: Personalisation truly enhances customer experience – during and after a sale. But if you are not asking the right questions, you may stretch out or lose deals in trying to solve the wrong problem, or focusing on selling the product rather than providing a solution.
Tip: Deep dive into your customer data to understand things like who your prospects are, their purchasing processes, business needs and objectives, past interactions, etc. Then, use this information to create personalised, solution-based sales strategies that consider each prospects’ unique needs and challenges.
4. Counting on a single champion: If you are only focusing on convincing a single point of contact, you are not addressing the needs of other stakeholders. Tapping into their objectives as well can help you win greater advocacy among them.
Tip: Broaden the conversation and get to the root of each stakeholder’s pain points.
5. Not articulating value clearly: It is important to articulate the risks and benefits of different situations to help your prospects make informed decisions. Having industry-specific knowledge and understanding your prospects’ business processes can become differentiating factors here.
Tip: Show prospects how your offerings can help them grow by using data visualisation tools to demonstrate impact on important KPIs and ROI.
6. Selling in a silo: Sales is better as a team. You can win more deals by unifying your entire organisation to achieve the same goals.
Tip: Use collaboration tools to unify the entire sales team and other teams on one platform. By sharing information in real-time, you can create a 360-degree view of deals and accounts with your colleagues and collaborate seamlessly.
Enable your sales team to go up and beyond with Sales Cloud 360
There is always scope for improvement. And giving your sales teams access to the right tools and information can help them connect with prospects better and close deals faster. Using a sales CRM tool like Sales Cloud can put data and action at your team’s fingertips. With Sales Cloud 360, you can turn your mobile phone into a portable sales office – manage contacts, follow up, collaborate, automate, access insights, and more.
Check out Sales Cloud’s pricing editions to explore available features and benefits.
