How to get your first B2B customer

The point of this article is to offer one example on how to crack your first B2B customer if you are not working with a ton of resources. Not about the first ten. This is about the very first one.

Before reaching out to buyers

You have to know about the person you’re selling to (hopefully you are trying to sell to this buyer because you’ve experienced the pain point yourself or have learned it through a different tangent that you were working on in the space).

Usually, there are 3-4 pieces of software in B2B buyer’s stack (it is likely they have been using this for the last 10-15 years). It is going to be difficult to sell something that is not a #1 or #2 priority. For instance, if you are a hotel, your reservation software (endearingly known as the PMS) is very important to you. You’d pay 6 figures and up because it does complicated things and can drive $10m/year in sales per property (depending on the size of the property). If you are building a competitor to this product (that is significantly better than what they have) you will be able to get the attention of almost any decision maker. You can reach out to anyone and get a response.

Let’s say you’ve decided you’re not selling something that replaces priority #1 or #2 (because the pain point you’ve decided is worth solving doesn’t fall into either bucket). Here’s where things get tricky. Are you saving them money or growing their sales? To answer this question, you’ll need to know the industry/buyer inside out. You’ll need to do some research to figure out their economics - what do they pay now to solve this problem? If they aren’t presently paying to have it solved, what’s changed that will now make them want to fork out $ for it? Why is this a problem for them - why are they going to go to their boss to try to slot you in now. How will they explain your product to their manager - whenever you send them something make sure it is something that can be forwarded. Their manager should be able to see the email sent along without being annoyed by the sender or you.

Once you’ve reached out/landed a meeting because you’ve checked all the boxes above

You’ve now gotten through all of the above and landed a meeting. You still don’t know if they really care.

You’ll know if it is a pain point or a nice to have by how quickly they are responding, how many people they are roping into the conversation and by the quality of their responses. As with most things, you shouldn’t be trying to convince people to do things they don’t want to do: Your highest point of leverage is in finding people who are already leaning your way and showing them that you can give them what they want. You have to be laser focused on finding the person who needs what you have the most. Do a breadth-weighted search until you land on that customer.

How to solve for the basics/pre-reqs for getting the above two steps done

All of the above works particularly well if you have a full team/spent months building out product + know your buyer inside out and have points of contact to begin with. Sometimes you’ll need to do this faster (in weeks not months or years). It is likely that you’ll be missing some combination of the above. Below are some ways to fill in the gaps.

1. If you don’t understand your buyer perfectly/are not an industry insider: Study the industry. Reach out to anyone you know within the industry to vet what you think vs. what is real. Talk to believable people - not people who have an opinion around what you are selling but have never been directly involved somehow. Talk to anyone you can who can give you the buyer’s perspective or has sold to the buyer. If you’re selling accounting software try to get to the company that is selling them payroll software. Figure out that perspective. Ask for a warm introduction once you build enough credibility with them (by showing you ask reasonable questions + can build product).

2. If you don’t have a fully built team + product: Get as much as you can done. Make sure the product solves at least one problem for your buyer. Convey this through demo or design. If they need a full suite of operational tools tell them they can start by using a subset of those features for a reduced price (always be ready to work through your pricing especially if you haven’t sold a single thing to anyone). If they need what you’re putting out there, they won’t mind. Then you’ll have to build fast between meetings.

3. If you don’t have a fully built product: Commitment levers - you don’t have leverage because you really have nothing yet at ground zero. Understand if you’re bringing value. Then figure out a way for them to commit to something seriously. It can be a month long trial with defined conversion metrics (if 65 operational surveys are done using our software, you’ll agree to convert your 8 remaining properties). These are important because it surfaces what they are really trying to get out of the purchase and shows you how to iterate toward something with staying power. None of this matters before you have a first meeting + are able to feel them out.

That’s it. Get the basic commitment through a combination of demos/design/actual building of product. Deliver on your promises post meetings and do nothing but build product and talk to your point of contact and your users (they will likely not be the same people). Once you get the first brand/buyer behind you, it becomes easier to topple your next domino. You’re going to have to make up for what you lack (either in terms of team or time) by getting creative sooner - NOT by giving yourself extra months to get something done. In the beginning you’re not just selling, you’re learning. So do it yourself for as long as you can and as intensely as you can.

We built Sapling to get working projects up and running for situations like the above quickly. We’re giving it away for free for a little bit. We’d love to hear from you.