Sales often feels like a “sink or swim” kind of job, especially for reps working for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). With limited resources and constant pressure to secure more deals, these reps may feel like they’re rowing against a current, trying to stay afloat as larger competitors speed by in their yachts.
The good news is that when a business is small, it’s usually also a lot more nimble. With the right strategies and a dash of innovation, these reps can zip along like a waverunner outmaneuvering competitors to close more deals.
Here’s a look at how you can:
• Find the Right Buyers
• Understand Pain Points
• Speak Their Language
• Make More Connections
• Simplify With Technology
Find the Right Buyers
Targeted prospecting means that your reps are selective about the accounts they work. This kind of narrowed focus can help close a lot more deals because it reduces the time and money spent trying to reach companies that are unlikely to buy.
For this strategy to work, you need to:
- Understand your Ideal Customer Profile
- Know which of your target accounts are currently considering solutions you can offer
First, define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Examine the characteristics of your best customers. Do they fall within a common set of industries? Are they a certain size? What buyer personas are your first points of conversation, and who are the decision-makers? Examine firmographics, technographics, and psychographics that your buyers may have in common.
By prioritizing ICP accounts, you enhance your odds of turning outreach into revenue.
Next, identify which companies are on a buying journey and how close they are to making a decision. 6sense calls these “in-market accounts.”
Finding in-market accounts is tricky, because only about 3% of people who visit B2B websites fill out web forms. So only 3% of your site visitors make themselves visible to you.
That’s bad — but unfortunately, it gets worse. Many of your potential accounts are doing general online research using third-party sites, social networks like LinkedIn, or reading competitor content. There’s a constellation of research happening that you cannot see.
Tools like 6sense make this research visible by using a B2B network to gather signals indicating which companies are researching specific topics. When combined with AI-driven predictive analytics, these intent signals allow you to identify which of your target accounts are researching solutions — extremely early in their buying journey.
It’s a massive advantage that helps you enter deal conversations earlier, understand customers better, and craft your value messaging in ways that are far more compelling.
Understand Pain Points
For sales reps at SMBs to effectively communicate and engage with potential customers, they must have a thorough understanding of the products or services they’re selling, including:
- Features
- Benefits
- Use cases
- Competitive advantages
This enables you to address specific customer pain points and provide value.
Product knowledge also helps to handle objections and concerns more effectively. By anticipating potential prospect questions or challenges, you can provide confident and insightful responses, mitigating doubts and increasing the likelihood of closing the sale.
Speak Their Language
Engaging effectively with your target audience means speaking their language. Research your prospect’s company and industry to get a deeper understanding of their business and its challenges.
When you know what makes a prospect tick, you can personalize your messaging and approach to address their specific needs.
Sales intelligence tools provide a big advantage by gathering insights into account attributes and activity, including:
- Keyword and topic research
- Website visits (on your site and many third-party sites where prospects conduct research)
- Email engagement
By understanding the keywords and topics that are of interest to your target audience, you can create sales collateral that’ll resonate with potential customers. You can also work with your marketing team to build campaigns that target specific keywords that you know your accounts often research.
Make More Connections
While the times of steak dinners and handshakes in sales are largely in the past, meeting buyers in person still goes a long way. Industry events, conferences, and trade shows offer a valuable platform for sales reps to connect with potential customers, industry peers, and thought leaders. Attending these events provides an opportunity to build relationships and showcase your SMB expertise.
To maximize the revenue impact of attending these events, it’s essential to implement pre-event and follow-up campaigns.
Before the event, create a targeted campaign to generate buzz and attract the attention of attendees. Send personalized emails, use social media to engage with attendees, or even host a pre-event webinar.
After the event, nurture the connections you made during the event with personalized follow-up emails. This helps solidify the relationships formed and keeps your business top of mind for potential customers.
Simplify With Technology
Using the right tools streamlines all the best practices laid out above and maximizes your overall efficiency as a salesperson.
Customer relationship management (CRM) systems enable reps to effectively manage and track interactions with accounts, making sure no important details fall through the cracks. By automating repetitive tasks like data entry and follow-ups, you save valuable time and focus on more high-value activities.
Sales intelligence tools are a game-changer for identifying the highest-value accounts, nurturing leads, and recommending outreach. These platforms use intent data and predictive analytics to identify customers that match your ICP and are ready to buy.
Conclusion
In the challenging world of B2B sales armed with the strategies outlined in this blog, sales reps can navigate SMB waters with confidence. By prioritizing personalized approaches, leveraging technology, and making the most of networking opportunities, B2B sales reps can chart a course towards success, reeling in more deals and propelling their SMB customers to new heights of growth and profitability.
