To close B2B sales, you need the right strategies. It isn’t enough to just get a meeting with a client. You want them to become enamored with your product and agree to purchase.

Here are seven B2B sales strategies that will make closing deals easier in 2020.

1. Map Out Your Customer’s B2B Sales Journey

Understanding where your customer is in their journey towards your product or service will make it easier for you to close.

To do this, you need to identify key decision-makers within the businesses you’re targeting.

Determine who the end-users are within organizations. These are the department leaders who will decide whether it’s your company, or a competitor, they will buy from.

Once you determine the decision-makers, then you can work on how to optimize the buyer journey to close sales. Buyer journeys are broken down into various phases—this strategy map outlines the customer journey and the touch points that businesses can use to effectively reach them.

There are five key stages that a buyer travels through before they become a loyal customer. Depending on the stage they’re in, the customer will respond in different ways.

Awareness

At the awareness stage, customers are still shopping around.

The thrust of your sales strategy should be to encourage them to reach your landing page or website. You can do this by informing them about your company and product through marketing campaigns.

Consideration

During the consideration phase, your prospect is still weighing their options and seeing where your product stands amongst your competitors.

Your prospect is looking for the product that will best solve their pain points. At this stage, it’s a good idea to send along content that reassures them about your product and helps them move to the acquisition stage. Examples of content to send them are comparison guides, case studies, and a free trial or demo.  To get customers through the consideration process, you want to be certain the content you direct them towards answers their questions and presents solutions to their problems. Designing a landing page to answer these questions and share persuasive content is a great way to move your prospect from consideration to conversion.

Acquisition

A well-made landing page and quick responses to customer queries will give buyers the motivation to complete the purchase.

Service

Closing a deal is an achievement in itself, but you want more. You want them to become a loyal customer and advocate for your business—drawing in more customers.

Once the sale is completed, the customer moves into the service stage. At this point, you should highlight the additional value they will receive by using your product or service.

This will give them the incentive to continue partnering with your business—and eventually to become an advocate for your product or service.

Loyalty

As loyal and happy customers, your buyers will not only continue to purchase from you—signing multi-year deals—but will actively promote your product to others.

2. Plan Your B2B Sales Meeting

Before you meet with a prospect—whether in-person or via video call—you need to plan out your closing strategy.

You already know who’s your target audience—now it’s time to research them thoroughly. Some questions to ask yourself are: How do they operate? Who is their target market? What are their short-term and long-term goals?

This information will help you be more persuasive in your client meetings—it will also show the customer that you are willing to personalize the sales experience for them.

Start by determining your timeline to complete the sale—you don’t need to communicate this with the client but keep a note of how much time you’re willing to afford each prospect.

Plan out simple questions that will encourage your client to say ‘yes’.he more they agree during the meeting, the easier it will be for you to close the deal.

3. Use Case Studies in Your B2B Sales Pitch

Social proof is a great B2B sales strategy to employ. Even the most interested clients still want evidence that you can provide the solutions they need.

Case studies are useful closing tools because they demonstrate how your company has helped others. 

You should design case studies around customer success stories. Include testimonials from your existing customers, the products and services you offered, and how they solved customer problems.

Include data about how your product helped clients—by boosting revenue, improving workflows, increasing customer satisfaction, or raising net promoter scores—like in this example.

4. Make B2B Sales About ‘Us’, Not ‘You’

The language you use during your B2B sales discussions impacts the customer. 

Instead of using ‘I’ and ‘You’, which separates your customer from your company, use ‘we’ and ‘us’.

• How can ‘we’ agree on the next course of action?
• When can ‘we’ begin?
• This solution is perfect for ‘us’.

This kind of language puts you on the same level as your customer—you’re effectively telling them that they’ll become your partners.

Also, remember that even though you are selling a product, that’s not all you should be presented during the sales discussion.

As a salesperson, your ultimate goal is to help your prospect find the best solution to their problem. Instead of pushing the hard sale, go into the process as a trusted advisor who wants to find the best solution for their client regardless of if it's your product.

By using this approach you will show your prospect you have their best interests in mind and can be trusted to help.

5. Follow-Up on B2B Sales Emails

A single email to a prospective customer should not be your only B2B sales strategy.

Practice the art of writing follow-up emails. Acknowledge that you’re taking their time, and contextualize your email, at least until you have an established relationship with them.

Again, avoid hard-selling. Instead, talk about the solutions you can provide, like in the example below.

6. Clear the Path for the Close

When you feel like your customer isn’t coming to a decision, don’t be afraid to ask whether the deal is possible. 

What’s the worst that could happen? If they say ‘yes’, you can negotiate further or sweeten the deal by adding more services or offering discounts.

If you get a ‘no’, at least you can move on.

Customers may have objections. It’s good to anticipate these so you can find ways to resolve them before they arise. 

If they’re still on the fence, consider sharing a deadline by which they would benefit from making the purchase.

Ask if they need help with understanding how to use the product or learning its features—that could incentivize them to complete the deal.

Give them options—would you like to take Deal A or Deal B? People love options and if you give them alternatives, they’ll be less inclined to turn you away.

7. Close B2B Sales by Visualizing Use Cases

One way to close in B2B sales is by showing your prospects your product in action. 

In your pitch, you addressed your customer’s pain points. Now ask them how they plan to use your product for their company. Imagining your product in their hands moves them closer to making that deal.

Go a step further if possible. In your pitch, include visuals of your product or service, like this use case example for a restaurant ordering system.

If you can add some of your client’s branding in the image, even better. By doing the work for your prospects, you can close deals faster.

8. Use B2B Sales Management Software

It’s easier to close B2B sales deals when you have the right tools. 

For instance, CRM softwares like Hubspot, Salesforce, or Zoho help you track deals, customer status, order value, and revenue so you don’t fail to close deals on time.

Sales-specific tools such as Badger Maps are great to have. Badger will not only help you cut down on driving time between meetings, but help you stay organized, find new leads, and take your CRM on-the-go.

Project management tools like Monday.com will make collaboration between sales teams, managers, and marketing teams more efficient.

There are numerous automated chatbots and live chat tools that facilitate better and consistent communication between prospects and sales associates so discussion points aren’t missed.

Using these tools will make closing deals a more effective process while taking up less time.

Key Takeaways: Use these Strategies to Close More B2B Sales in 2020

To recap, here are the methods you can adopt:

• Understand your customer’s journey
• Plan out your sales meeting in advance
• Make the sales pitch about ‘us’
• Follow up via email 
• Clear the path for the close
• Show use cases to your prospects
• Share case studies of successful customers 
• Invest in sales software to accelerate the closing

With these sales strategies under your belt, you’ll be prepared to confidently and effectively close more B2B sales than ever before.

Author Bio: Ronita Mohan is a content marketer at Venngage, the online infographic maker and design platform. Ronita regularly writes about marketing, sales, and small businesses. Twitter: @Venngage