Over the years B2B Solutions Sales has evolved, today in abundance of digital information and publicly available data, organizations are defining solutions for their requirements and circumventing ways to ditch sales reps.
Traditional method of B2B solutions sales of identifying customers with recognized problem, prioritizing one's willing to act, asking set of questions to gain hook, to attach their companies solutions to the problem, and highlighting advantages of their solutions, in comparison to competition, are no longer working.
Today, majority of B2B customers are researching solutions, weighing options, benchmarking pricing, and outlining requirements, before even having a conversation with sales reps.
From technology to insurance to business process outsourcing, B2B customers are often ahead of sales teams helping them. They are coming to sales discussions, armed with detailed specs and through understanding of their requirements.
B2B Sales professional, applying traditional selling techniques, based on the premise, that salespeople should lead with open-ended questions, designed to surface recognized customer needs, are increasingly finding it difficult to make headway with their sales pitches.
This disruptive environment has given rise to B2B Sales Specialist, a super star doubling on performance and pulling ahead. They accounted to 40% of high performers and close to 54% in complex B2B insight driven solutions sales.
According to a study B2B customers appreciate vendors ability to provide new insight and is one of the biggest reasons of customers loyalty.
Star B2B Sales Professionals (20% in terms of quota attainment), have abandoned the traditional B2B sales playbook completely and devised a novel, even radical, sales approach built on the three strategies.
Today a star B2B Sales professional turns conversations into making customers aware of emerging needs and nurturing them towards a desired outcome.
Today, B2B buyers are increasingly circumventing sales; they’re increasingly using publicly available information to identify their needs and employing sophisticated procurement departments and third-party purchasing consultants to help them extract the best possible deals from suppliers.
B2B sales landscape is changing rapidly B2B Sales professionals need to adapt to be successful in insight solutions sales. Sticking to old selling approach will face increased rebuffs and rejections from their customers. The one willing to adapt and applying insight-selling, seeking out customers primed for change, challenging them with proactive insights, and educate them in championing sales internally, will become indispensable. Making difference between sales pitch that goes nowhere to one that closes customers business.