There has never been a better time to sell your groundbreaking idea to your B2B clients.
In the good times, capital-intensive businesses rested on their laurels, shunning the advances of innovators and preferring to milk their existing asset bases.
Now, they need outside help to hunt down cost savings. They also need to create advantage to fight of competition in shrinking markets.
Innovative B2B suppliers are struggling to cope with a combination of strong demand, but aggressive price negotiations. Clients are demanding more pre-sales time to deal with disorganized procurement behaviour. Service and supplier companies increasingly find themselves in beauty parades with their competition as clients search for answers to their problems.
Stop the rot… Here are three ideas to help you control your destiny:
- Consultative Selling: Even if you’re a product company, have a chargeable consulting service to help the client define the implementation of your technology in his organisation. Set the expectation that advice is not free.
- Create Competition: Identify competing companies and sell to them concurrently. You create a compelling event and get more control of the timing and the key steps in the sales cycle.
- Create Choice for Yourself: Before you waste valuable selling time quickly qualify each prospect in or out. Get them to agree to your process as soon as possible. The ones that don’t want to co-operate qualify out.
The third quarter of 2009 seems to be a turning point, particularly in pharmaceuticals, process and utility industries. It looks like decisions are being made in Q4, in time for execution next year. Maybe now is the time to step up lead generation and selling activity.
By the way did you know that one in eight people thrive in a recession? And they do much better than the other seven do in times of plenty.
(Pic: Jeff Kubina cc2.0)
