How to improve your B2B sales process

A B2B sales process identifies the places where prospects can’t move forward without help from a sales person. If you haven’t already created your B2B sales process then related article “How to create a B2B sales process” will help.

Improving your B2B sales process

A thorough analysis of the processes your existing customers went through is needed in order to improve your current process.

1. Analyse

What is working, what isn’t? Think of your last 10 deals – what did they look like?… What were the customer touch points?… How long did it take and how long was there between each step? How was each step carried out? – online, face-to-face, phone?

2. Define buyer’s journey for target persona

There are 8 steps in a buyer’s journey. What is the buyer’s journey process from your customer’s perspective? (I am referencing the main 3 here. I have an article coming soon about the B2B customer journey)

1. Awareness: The buyer realises they have a problem
2. Consideration: The buyer defines problem and researches options to solve it
3. Decision: The buyer chooses solution

What is your target persona or target buyer, ie the individual behind the evaluation. Who is your main contact going to be?

A persona is a semi-fictional representation of an ideal customer based on market research and your existing customers’ data. It includes customer demographics, behaviour patterns and traits, motivations, goals and barriers to reaching their goals. Include as much detail as possible.

3. Define the action that moves your prospect to next stage

Based on your prospect’s actions, what causes a prospect to move from one stage to next?

4. Define exit criteria for each step to improve B2B sales process

These are the things that have to happen in order for the sale to move from one stage to next. They might include:

• Demo
• Video
• Testimonial or case study
• Reference visit
• Blog
• White paper
• Meeting with CEO
• Tech questions answered or meeting with CTO

5. Measure sales process results

How many prospects transitioned into and out of each step in a given time period? How long did they remain at each step?

• What is the average time prospects stay in each step?
• Which step (if any) takes too long for prospects to move out of?
• What percentage of prospects close after a demo?
• What percentage of prospects request a demo after initial discovery call?
• Churn rate. How can you use this data to identify mismatched prospects early in the sales process?

Improve B2B sales process presentation

To make things easier for you to implement, here’s a presentation you can use in your next sales and marketing meeting! Download it via Slideshare.