June 22, 2021

Are you a manufacturer or SME with great products that have amazing benefits to your customers? Do you sell to technical customers or engineers?  And… are your sales not achieving the levels that you expected? If so.. read on to find out how having the right B2B sales strategy will greatly improve your sales success. 

The big challenge  

The biggest challenge for companies like yours that have great products but aren’t selling as well as they hoped is that you may not have the right B2B sales strategy in place to successfully increase your sales

Without a good B2B sales strategy, companies are likely mismanaging sales opportunities, unable to progress enquiries successfully and as a result will fail to gain their company the potential revenue and profit they deserve. 

Worst still, they might even lose some key knowledgeable staff in the process which may require a lot of time and effort to replace.  

Many companies will not grow to their full potential because the sales part of their business was not able to support the marketing and operations efforts for growth.  

This is not a difficult fix! 

A good technical B2B sales strategy  

Technical sales are a different type of sales, requiring a vast knowledge of how products fit into their customers technical world. A good technical B2B sales strategy ensures that the benefits of the products will be communicated well throughout the B2B sales process. This will lead to: 

– Better leads
– Improved sales conversions
– More target customers
– Increased revenue
– Larger profit!!  

The strategy incorporates three main focal points … What is the sales process used by our company to gain customers? What are the key communications needed to successfully convert leads? What skills are required in the company to achieve these?  

The B2B sales process 

Anything that happens between a lead being generated to onboarding a new customer is the sales process. Mapping this out well ensures that every opportunity is given a chance to convert.  

Engineers & technical manufacturing sales processes are usually lengthier because they are either replacing an existing product within a manufacturing process or they are supporting a new process. In some cases, it may take a long time to manufacture/deliver the product. Or products may need a trial period to assess their benefits and added value. This all adds time to the process and increases the potential to dilute the relationship or worse, lose the sale. 

For this reason, part of the strategy should be mapping out the process with clear expectations and including ways to speed up progress where possible.  

If you need support in mapping out your sales process .. get in touch.  

Key communications  

Communicating with technical people requires a technical touch, don’t believe this relates solely to external communications. 

Firstly, most companies are now operating more collaboratively, but this is not always the case. I totally approve of effective communication and teamwork across departments e.g. operations, sales & marketing, engineers & R&D. How well are your teams communicating? Sharing of information will reduce mistakes, timeframes, and increase the quality of delivery and most certainly profitability of the products.  

Beyond internal comms, salespeople need to be able to communicate the benefits of their product to their target market well. They have to have the ability to understand the needs of the prospects and translate them into the right package/solution. This key skill is so important, and this is why many technical salespeople originate from operations & engineering. 

Presenting the solution well is one of the most key communications that are often delivered badly. Conversion rates at this stage should be between 70-80% successful. This means for each proposal you deliver to prospects; you should be winning 3 out of 4 of these. Do you know how well your proposals/presentations are performing?

To read a bit more about this, see our blog on Five Major Mistakes Salespeople Make. 

What if our sales guys/engineers don’t want to or can’t sell?  

The elephant in the room is…. “selling” … Quite often technical salespeople come from an operations or engineering role. They most probably haven’t had formal sales training and have been put in the role because they got on well with customers or had a really great friendly personality.  Sound familiar?  

Some do well … but most struggle to hit sales targets and start to get a very negative mindset against sales

They start to associate sales with the pushy “one-off sale” B2C salespeople who feel they have to “close the sale” before the potential client walks away or slams the door/phone on them.  

The reality is their learned mindset and the shortage of knowledge of the strategy and skills required hinders them from being very successful. They could be very profitable for the company and make a very comfortable living themselves! To read a bit more about this, see our blog on how to improve sales confidence. 

My products are amazing… Why are my sales so flat? 

In conclusion, if you truly believe that you have some amazing solutions for your target customers but aren’t actually getting the sales you deserve… take a look to see if you have a focused sales strategystrong sales process and sales team with the confidence and skills to take grow your business and bring success! 

We want you to increase your confidence and success in sales. We deliver courses that can provide the tools needed to convert more customers and make more money!! Click here to find out more. 

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