How to pre-sales in B2B market?
Hi folks,
I have a simple question that I ask myself every time I think of some B2B idea: How to make sales in B2B marketing?
I think sales in B2B is already thought in many ways:
- Finding the right contact inside the target company
- Getting in touch with them (cold call/email? Linkedin? etc.)
- Check if they are already a competitor customer or are not even using a solution for that problem (maybe they don't have that problem).
- etc...
All the above became even worse when:
- you don't have a real product to offer since you are still in the idea phase.
- you are not a full-time indie hacker yet
- the "purchase path/time" in a company is much longer than in B2C, so from a pre-sale to real money, going to your indie pocket takes more time.
I already did pre-sales in the B2C world when selling courses here in Brazil, but that is easier than B2B. Of course, it took a lot of effort and some money incorrect channels, but it worked, and the purchase path is speedy, so even with a small investment, the ROI is fast, which is also important for a bootstrapper/indie hacker.
So, how to really do you pre-sale in this case?
It's a little bit difficult to answer this question without knowing what product you're selling but a good approach is to start by pitching to smaller, newer companies. I had a startup founder reach out to me on LinkedIn last week with a brand new product that was essentially just a landing page. They explained their (extensive) experience in the space and said their product would be able to lower our costs of X by 80% which immediately got me interested. The founder then explained to me that while the tech is still very much in development, they'd offer us a high touch service to make sure we have the best possible experience. At that point I was sold.
While this is a really compelling B2B pitch to another startup, this tactic is unlikely to work for a large company who are often less cost conscious, have to go through layers of bureaucracy to reach decisions and are much more risk averse.
TL;DR - if your product allows it, start by pitching to smaller, newer companies that are more forgiving and can make fast purchase decisions.
Thank you, that example makes more concrete how to approach and how it could work.
Some business owners already contacted me, but as their services were not related to my activities, I felt like that is not useful, but hearing your point of view makes sense that that approach works when it reaches the right people.
Thank you
Hey Georgia -
This sounds like an amazing email, would you be able to share it? (Maybe with anything sensitive redacted - it would just be great to see the persuasiveness.)
Hey Andy, so it was actually over LinkedIn. This is the message they sent me (I've blanked out some of the details).
"Hi Georgia, are you <doing this thing> but tired of being charged a <£xxx> fee by <your current provider>?
We provide a new way to <do this thing> with 100% success rate, full consultancy support and a fast process for £<xxx>.
If you are interested could we schedule a quick call?
Have a good day"
Then I replied saying - Sounds interesting! Let's chat.
And then the rest was done over a 20 minute phone call where they explained their experience, that they are super early stage and want to prove that the model works. They then followed up the phone call by sending over a letter of engagement. Job done!
That is fab, thank you! It's so strong to do the objection handling all in a single sentence.
You're welcome! Glad this was useful
You are worrying about things but not really in the right order. let's start with this:
you are just in the idea phase and you aren't an indie hacker and cant build the idea. Okay, that's not the end of the world, you can find people to build your idea, but the idea, as an aspirin, has to address a pain point people are willing to PAY to make go away or you provide a vitamin that makes something good even better, like 5-10x better.
Step one is hanging out where your target market hangs out - their communities, etc. And seeing what they struggle with WITHOUT saying "how about this idea?" because they won't be honest, they will tell you it's great. Better to ask them what it would take to solve the problem move forward from there.
If you have a great idea at that point and a few people in the industry that are interested in trying it when it's ready you can build an MVP with people you find who are interested. Refine the product-market fit and at that point start worrying about how to crack the market.
DO everything in a logical order and only worry about the step you are on or you won't get anywhere. You are never going to have all the answers in advance, that's why this is hard.
Businesses are a lot slower than consumers (the bigger the business/corporation, the slower) but in the end it's not that different from B2C in my experience.
Starting with cold-calls is always hard so start with companies you know or ask people you know if they can give you an intro if they work for/know a company that has the problem you are solving. And then talk to them, ask them about their challenges and see if you can solve these challenges/their problems. people will be happy that you care about their problems and that you want to solve it. after every interview ask "do you know other people that I can talk to?" and they can give you intros to other companies they know.
That's how I do it in the beginning. Of course scaling that in a later stage could be another challenge, but for the beginning I prefer the 1-to-1 human approach ;-)
Thank you, I really like your advice even more on "do you know other people that I can talk to?", that seems simple but it could do the difference when getting started and need more leads.
Thank you!
Douglas