B2B sales tips - ask me questions for boosting sales of your product/service

Hey VMRatan,

I would suggest breaking down the sales process into funnels and then analyze what is the exact bottleneck.

Leads > Qualified Leads > Demo > Proposal > Closed Won

For each of these steps I would propose analyzing every single stage in order to identify what is the blocker and for what reason.

In this particular case that you mentioned, to be frank from what you wrote I don't get what is the exact service that you provide and if I need it at all. In that case, there are 3 alternatives:

1. Your narrative should be improved
2. Your target niches might need to be changed
3. I don't have the right mindset for your service/product and it's more on the individual side

Good luck.

Sometime back, I was in a chicken-egg story when we launched a product to digitize the Rental business. In order for our data to speak, we needed sales. In order to sell, we need the right pricing (one of the components in a package).

Then, we decided to list down all the functionalities our competitor is offering for the $ value. But, unfortunately, we couldn't test this strategy out because most of the rental businesses got badly affected or many closed down due to the Covid-19 Pandemic.

But, I still think this pricing technique would help us in giving more clues.

Hey Taschmahal,

What is the exact industry?

• Regarding provided value - In most of the cases in B2B space you're aiming towards 3 main provided values: saved time, cut expenses or increased revenue. You mentioned that you provide data, what is the impact of that data, how do your customers use it?

Based on that impact you can develop a strong value proposition (e.g. the data that we've provided to our customers helped them reduce 30% of costs required for xyz). It's also good to use emotional aspect in your value proposition, therefore in the same example (the data that we've provided to our customers helped them reduce 30% of costs required for xyz and it helped them prepare better for meetings and be more confident).

• Regarding pricing - Here are several things that you want to consider: do you want to build a consulting model or more scalable model, do you want to have one time payment or recurring revenue. If you're looking for a higher scalable startup model than aim more for a standardized service/product that you can easily replicate for different customers. In that case you will shorten your time of delivery and increase your margins. I would also suggest to go for recurring(periodical payments) and increasing the life time value of the customer.
  However, I've seen several startups lately having consulting model and working for them very well (which was a bit surprising for me) and those startups were usually coming from the process optimization/law field.

If you write more specifics I can give you more specific feedback.

Hey Kash,

Sorry for not coming back earlier, I was launching the beta and it was quite a ride for the last couple of weeks.

I would suggest avoiding enterprise-level clients as your first customers by any means necessary. Enterprise clients bring very long and complex sales cycles and a lot of corporate politics is involved. The only scenario that would be an exception is if you have many strong connections with enterprise clients (even then is super tricky). I would suggest building first a portfolio from smaller clients that will bring revenue and will help you improve your product and then after 2-3 years to start with onboarding enterprise clients.

Currently, I'm bootstrapping my new B2B SaaS and my long-term goal is onboarding big companies, however at the moment we're fully focused on SME. For investors, as proof of traction, I would ask some big enterprises (with whom I have a close relationship) to sign an LOI (letter of intent).

Hey Huong,

I've checked your website and your product looks cool, I really like the concept (disclaimer: I'm not in your industry so I wouldn't know how relevant it is to solve the problem).

1. Open rate of 27% is actually higher than average (15-25% is average for cold emails). Are your emails tailored to each lead or they are generic ones? If they are generic, I would highly recommend you to focus and rather send 10 very tailored emails than 50 generic ones.
2. What is your assumption, on which social media are active your target leads? Social selling is becoming a big thing in the B2B space. To utilize networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Also, are there some meetups or networking events for your target leads where you can meet them? I would highly recommend attending events and trying to meet them face-to-face (virtually or in-person if possible).

Marketing is a little bit different game, it can be great investment but it takes substantial budget and consistent activities to make it work. Until you're able to afford that (in terms of funds & people) I would recommend to focus on the outbound efforts.

Hey Ryanh1,

Are you starting a tech business? I would suggest you finding a biz co-founder, as business and tech go hand in hand and it's very important that you're strong from both sides (also investors insist on that).

If you would like to proceed with hiring someone on part-time basis and description that you've provided that's also possible just it might be a bit difficult to find someone according to that description for several reasons:

• Based on the description for the sales part it seems like you need someone that would do everything for the pre-sales part and that you would take over once the contact is established. Experienced sales people probably won't see that as a challenging part as they won't be doing the whole cycle from finding, hunting and closing the deal. And hunting is a fun part for the experienced sales people, if you take it out they might not be interested into that. Also, for their career development if they don't have progress (and taking the hunting part out it might be actually a step back) they won't be interested into it. So if you are insisting that you have someone that would do pre-sales and you to do sales then I would suggest you to look for someone who is more junior in sales or a fresh graduate. And that part is probably not aligned with what you've written to have a strategical thinking.

Therefore I would suggest you one of the following alternatives:

• Find a biz cofounder that will be responsible for the business side and will participate in the strategic activities (for here ideally someone who is having a previous cofounding experience and domain expertise)
• Find experienced sales person that will do the whole sales cycle (and include you) and build the portfolio working on part time basis, however you target someone that would join the company full time as the company grows and you would have experience of working together (for here ideally someone who has a great domain expertise)
• Find a junior sales person/fresh graduate that is passionate about participating in an early stage startup. That person would usually be eager to do the both things: pre-sales and customer interviews.

Based on what you decide between these 3, the best way to find them is to speak with people from your circles who are like them. Where they hang out, what they like, what they dislike, how to approach them, what are their motives, etc. And based on those inputs you tailor your approach.

Good luck.