16 B2B Sales Strategies to Guarantee Your Success + Templates

Did you know that companies with a formal sales process generate 18% more revenue than those without one?

A structured sales strategy can significantly impact your sales performance and, ultimately, your bottom line.

Do you find yourself struggling to boost your B2B sales? 

Well, you're not alone. 

If you want to achieve consistent long-term revenue growth, having a sales strategy is crucial. 

With the business environment constantly changing, knowing where to begin when trying to find the best sales approach can be challenging.

That's where we come in! 

We'll cover everything from setting sales objectives to creating a sales and marketing strategy so you can create a plan that drives growth for your business.

Plus, we'll provide you with B2B sales strategy templates that will guarantee sales to help you implement these strategies seamlessly. 

Get ready to discover the best B2B sales strategies and templates to help you succeed!

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What is a Sales Strategy? 

A sales strategy is a comprehensive roadmap that outlines the specific actions and tactics a business will take to achieve its sales goals. 

It serves as a blueprint to help your company effectively target and engage potential customers, convert leads into sales, and ultimately increase revenue.

To create a successful sales strategy for your business, you must first identify your target audience and determine what makes your product or service unique in the market. 

Simply understand what makes you stand out!

From there, you can develop a plan for how to reach and convince potential customers, as well as strategies for upselling and retaining existing customers.

Never assume that you can execute your sales strategy using a one-size-fits-all method. Each business will have its own unique goals, challenges, and target market, and tailor the plan accordingly. 

An effective sales strategy should be responsive to changes and feedback from clients and the sales force.

Overall, a good sales strategy can mean all of the difference to a business's success. Recognizing and meeting key sales challenges head-on, the company is able to meet its sales goals and also remain ahead of the game.

Consider it a living document that you can refer to as you execute your sales plan. So it’s also important to understand all the elements that build it:

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Elements of a Sales Strategy

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Creating a successful sales strategy plan involves seven key steps that are essential for targeting potential customers, converting leads into sales, and increasing revenue:

‍Measurable Objectives

Your sales strategy should have specific, measurable goals to track its effectiveness. These goals could include achieving a certain sales quota or acquiring a particular number of customers. It's important to establish a system for monitoring your sales team's progress using data dashboards, quarterly key performance indicators (KPIs), and monthly sales reviews.

Buyer Persona

Create a detailed and clear customer profile, known as a buyer persona, to identify your ideal buyer. 

This should include demographic and psychographic information about your target market, as well as details about their company size and their approach to the buying process.

Value Proposition

Develop a compelling value proposition that outlines the unique value your product or service has to offer to customers and how it addresses their pain points. This should clearly explain why customers should do business with your company.

Comprehensive Sales Process

Outline each stage of your sales process in detail, starting from prospect qualification. This should include guidelines for identifying high-probability prospects, a sales pitch for your salespeople to use, prepared responses to common objections, proven closing techniques, and determining the ideal length for a sales cycle.

Hiring Criteria

A skilled sales team is crucial for a successful sales strategy. Develop specific guidelines for sales managers to follow when recruiting and interviewing sales representatives. Additionally, create a comprehensive onboarding and training program to prepare sales reps to execute your strategy effectively.

CRM Database

Decide how you want to set up your customer relationship management (CRM) database. A CRM database is a comprehensive software system that provides contact management, customer support, customer retention, and marketing automation tools. It's essential for managing a growing customer base and sales pipeline. 

It allows sales managers to focus on other critical tasks such as forecasting sales goals, setting sales quotas, managing pricing, and motivating team members. Consider developing an in-house CRM database or using an outside vendor specializing in software as a service (SaaS).

Creating a sales strategy plan requires careful planning and execution. By understanding the importance and roles of the abovementioned elements, you can create a sales strategy plan that drives consistent long-term revenue growth for your business.

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Why You Need a B2B Sale Strategy 

A good B2B strategy is essential in today's sales landscape due to the challenges salespeople face. The challenges that businesses face today differ from those faced by salespeople in the past. 

Some of the new challenges include:

B2B Buyers' Distrust Has Grown

B2B buyers are becoming increasingly skeptical due to the vast amount of information available online. They are more likely to research products and services before purchasing.

Improved Access to Reviews 

With the rise of social media and review sites, B2B buyers have better access to reviews of products and services. They can quickly see other businesses' experiences and make informed decisions based on those reviews.

Greater Awareness of Risks

B2B buyers are becoming more risk-averse and are less willing to take chances. They want to be sure that the products or services they purchase will provide a return on investment and meet their needs.

A well-developed B2B sales strategy is essential in today's sales landscape. Businesses must know salespeople's challenges today, including increased buyer skepticism, better access to reviews, and heightened risk awareness. 

By understanding these challenges, companies can develop strategies that address them and increase their chances of success.

B2B Sales Strategies To Bring You More Customers 

In today's competitive business world, B2B companies need to have effective sales strategies that help them attract and retain customers. 

Here are some key B2B sales strategies to increase your customer base:

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1. Create a Lead-nurturing Strategy

A lead-nurturing plan involves developing a relationship with potential customers by providing valuable information addressing their pain points. 

This strategy will help earn the trust of the potential prospects and hence leading in convincing them to make purchases.

In fact, a well-executed plan of lead nurturing can produce 50% more sales-ready leads at about half the cost.

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2. Develop a Follow-up Plan

Follow-up leads play an important function in case a company has the intention of converting them into their customers. As much as 7 in 10 companies that follow up within one hour of the lead arriving will qualify a lead than a company that waits two hours more.‍

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‍Creating a follow-up plan ensures no leads slip through the cracks and increases your chances of converting leads into customers.

3. Create a Feedback Procedure

Setting up a feedback process lets you gain insights into your customer's needs and preferences. 

Listening to your customers and factoring in their concerns could help you make improvements in your products or services and also increase customer loyalty. 

Regularly soliciting customer feedback can help you stay in tune with their changing needs and preferences.

4. Emphasize Sales Experience

Providing an excellent sales experience can help you differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Companies that focus on customer experience deliver revenues 60% greater than companies that don't.

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Focusing on the sales experience involves understanding your customer's needs and preferences and tailoring your sales process to meet their expectations.

5. Create Ideal Buyer Personas

Developing buyer personas involves creating a profile of your ideal customer based on demographics, behavior, and preferences. 

Understanding your ideal customer is essential to creating effective marketing and sales strategies. 

Your sales and marketing activities will be more successful if you customize your messaging and product offers to your target market's demands and preferences.

6. Sync Up the Marketing and Sales Teams

Aligning your sales and marketing teams means both are working towards the same goals. 

Companies that align their sales and marketing teams generate 208% more revenue from their marketing efforts. 

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Aligning sales and marketing involves developing shared goals and metrics and regular communication and collaboration between the two teams.

7. Sales Enablement

Sales enablement is basically the process of arming your sales force with the basic resources and tools to sell more effectively.  Empowering your sales team can improve their productivity and increase their success rates. 

Sales enablement can include training, coaching, technology, and content development.

8. Salespeople Empowerment

Empowering them involves providing them with the training and support they need to succeed. Investing in your sales team's development can improve their performance and increase your revenue. 

Empowering your sales team can include ongoing training and coaching and opportunities for professional development and career advancement.

9. Get to Know Your Prospect

This means that by understanding the pain points, needs, and preferences of your prospect it will be easy to customize your messaging as well as offers in a way that attracts the customer to buy from you.

Research, ask questions and listen more needs and preferences of your prospect.

10. Seek Out Opportunities

Identifying opportunities involves identifying potential customers and understanding their needs.  With that sort of information at your disposal, you can then make up marketing and sales campaigns with more precisely targeted messaging that is much much more likely to resonate.

Identifying opportunities can involve market research, data analysis, and customer profiling.

11. Account-based Selling

Account-based selling involves targeting specific accounts and tailoring your offerings to their particular needs. 

Doing so can increase your chances of closing deals and retaining customers.

In fact, 87% of marketers, according to Rollworks, believe ABM outperforms other marketing initiatives. 

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Account-based selling can involve developing customized solutions and building relationships with key decision-makers.

12. Request Referrals

Referral selling involves leveraging existing relationships to generate new business. It involves asking satisfied customers to refer you to their network and providing incentives. 

Generating high-quality leads and building trust and credibility with potential customers can be achieved by adopting referral selling techniques. In fact, referral marketing initiatives produce good or exceptional leads, according to 78% of B2B marketers.

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It involves developing solid relationships with existing customers and creating a culture of customer advocacy within your organization. 

By asking for referrals, you can tap into the power of word-of-mouth marketing and increase your chances of success. Don’t underestimate referral sales! 

13. Strategic Selling

Strategic selling involves taking a proactive and deliberate approach to identifying and pursuing opportunities. It involves deeply understanding the customer's business and aligning your offerings with their strategic objectives. 

Strategic selling can involve building relationships with key decision-makers and influencers.

14. Selling Solutions

In solution selling, it is crucial to identify the precise issues that the customer is facing and provide tailored solutions that effectively address those issues. This process requires a deep understanding of the technical aspects of the customer's business and the ability to develop customized solutions that integrate seamlessly with their existing systems.

The successful execution of solution selling requires a comprehensive knowledge of the latest technological trends and their practical applications in the customer's industry.

15. Lead Nurturing

Did you know that 80% of new leads never progress into sales due to lack of lead nurturing?

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Lead nurturing is the expert way of moving a lead from by interested to buying. It consists in providing valuable information and resources that address their pain points and needs and staying in regular contact to keep your brand top-of-mind. 

Lead nurturing can involve email marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing.

16. Social Selling

Social selling involves leveraging social media platforms to connect with potential customers and build relationships. It uses social media to research prospects, identify opportunities, and share valuable content that addresses their needs and pain points. 

Social selling can involve building a solid personal brand and developing relationships with key influencers in your target market.

By implementing these B2B sales strategies, businesses can increase their customer base and achieve their sales goals more effectively. 

Surely you’re wondering which one you should use, let’s talk about it:

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Which B2B Sales Strategy Should You Use? 

Determine your target market groups, their preferred ways of interacting, the number of decision makers engaged, the length of your sales cycle, and the resources you've to play with, in order to develop and lay out for yourself the best B2B sales strategy your company needs.

The abovementioned strategies have been effective for some businesses, but they might not work for everyone.

It is clear that B2B sales have experienced tremendous change. The emphasis now is on selecting the best prospects and using a variety of channels to communicate with diverse decision-makers at the appropriate moment.

To increase the chance of success, adopting a customized strategy that aligns with your intended audience's requirements and expectations is essential.

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Supercharge Your Strategy

Adopting the right B2B sales strategy can be a game-changer for your business. 

By implementing the appropriate tactics, you can boost your sales performance, reach your target market, and achieve your goals. 

With the help of AI bees, you can take your B2B sales strategy to the next level. 

Download our free guide: B2B sales strategy templates that will guarantee sales, which offers valuable insights and actionable tips to help you develop an effective strategy that aligns with your business objectives.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to supercharge your B2B sales strategy. 

Talk to us today and take the first step towards guaranteeing your success.