B2B Sales

Behind every successful motion picture, there’s an entire team of people, responsible for different tasks, working towards the joint goal of co-creating the next blockbuster movie. The director is the creative genius with the vision, who works closely with the actors to coach and guide them in that direction. On her side, there's the producer. A film producer is running more operational tasks such as the hiring of crew and cast, scheduling, and sourcing of material.

Why are we talking about movies, you might ask? Well, because in high-growth sales organizations it’s not uncommon that the VP Sales becomes a sales liability. Sales coaching, forecasting, evaluating sales tools... are just a few of the things we usually see sales leadership spend their time on. With too many things on their plate, a VP Sales will either be letting important processes and decisions slip through the cracks, or spend way too much time looking at the numbers while not spending enough time on their people.

Having a sales operations role is a smart solution for a growing sales organizations, similar to the what a movie director seeks in their producer. By leaving more responsibility on the sales operations manager (producer), the VP Sales (director) can spend more time on leading the team towards success.

How do you continue selling in the current situation? Will companies invest or scale back their sales activities? What effect do all-remote sales teams have on productivity?

A long and firm handshake. This gesture used to signify the end of a long sales process. At that moment, the prospect and the salesperson developed a solid relationship, even a friendship, after meeting in person several times at each other’s office, and more often than not, for a good amount of after-work cocktails.

The secret of successful sales and marketing alignment is simply constant, effective communication. But this can't happen when both teams speak different languages. That's why we thought we'd take a moment to go back to basics and rounded up this complete glossary of sales and marketing terms.

This practical sales glossary is also meant for any sales managers who are on-boarding new reps. It will help newbies get immersed in B2B sales jargon in no time.

It quickly became a canonical sequence in film history. In it, Mel Gibson, on a horse and with his face painted blue for battle, delivers a heartfelt, motivational speech before sending his troops into a fight for freedom. It’s a powerful scene, and one that teams of any size and field can relate to.

Every so often, a team needs some inspirational words to boost morale, build trust and rapport, and get everyone re-invigorated to hit their goals. In other words, everybody can use a movie speech from time to time. That’s why sales kickoff meetings exist.

With the end of the year approaching, we’re continuing tradition and predicting the coming year’s most important trends affecting B2B sales.

The past decade has treated B2B sales well. Nowadays, sales leadership is commonly a part of the company’s management team and a focus area in the company’s strategy. Universities have introduced sales courses in their curriculum, and talented salespeople are entering the job market more than ever before. It seems sales is doing better and taken more seriously than ever before.

This is the starting point in which we’re predicting next year’s trends—and here they are:

August is here! We're past the halfway mark in 2019, which means you only have five months left to crush your sales targets.

One way to make your challenge easier is finally taking advantage of sales automation. Automate the repetitive and frustrating parts of sales, so that you can focus on what truly matters: having engaging conversations with your prospects and customers. Stop grinding away at those unnecessarily tedious tasks and let the robots take the wheel.

It’s just selling, isn’t it? I’m sure you’ve heard this question a few times after you’ve mentioned you work in business to business sales. Such an assumption makes your eyes roll because business-to-business sales, more commonly known as B2B sales, is a tough field in which salespeople face demanding professional buyers and overzealous decision‑makers.

Yes, business to business sales is just that, sales from one business entity to another, and therefore, requires persuasive communication and strong negotiation skills. However, mastering business-to-business sales is much more than just selling. Due to the complex scope and scale of the business-to-business model, salespeople must achieve a thorough understanding of a prospect’s needs, so they can adopt a consultative role.

Because the way people buy has changed, this is the right moment to review what makes business-to-business selling different, and how technology is changing this way of doing sales.

In sports, many teams use a playbook to chart out potential in-game scenarios, outlining the teams' strategies, tricks for avoiding common impediments, and tips for reaching goals smoothly. Similarly, a sales playbook can help sales teams build systematic winning habits and processes.

Integrating sales playbooks into your business strategy ensures better attainment of quota, increased customer retention rates, and improved lead conversion rates.

If you’re an angler, you might be interested to know that the newest estimates say there are about 3,5 trillion fish currently living in the world ocean. If you’re a B2B sales professional, you probably don’t care about things like how many salmons there are in the Pacific Ocean. What you want to know is the number of companies that can be successful with your product or service, and what revenue these potential customers can generate you–your total addressable market.