7 Sales Tips for Early Stage B2B Startups

Starting a business the right way isn’t an easy operation. And it is even more challenging when it is a Business-to-Business startup model. To ensure you run a successful B2B startup, you must pay attention to sales at the early stage because that is how you keep the business running.

Businesses of all kinds need sales to scale. From Fortune 500 companies to the smallest startups in your hometown. At the early stage of any startup, it is always challenging. Doing it right requires a considerable amount of hard work and teamwork.

As a startup founder at an early stage, it is not new that you are the marketer, accountant, product manager, and even the person attending to clients. This is because you want to make sure the business doesn’t collapse.

So, to help, here are 7 sales tips for early-stage B2B startups that you can use to attract big clients and prevent your business from folding up.

1. A Sales Strategy

You need a sales strategy. Before thinking about marketing your startup to potential clients, you first need to come up with a sales strategy. What is a sales strategy? A sales strategy is a plan of how you intend to keep sales flowing in your business.

A sales strategy has to do with, ‘who you are going to sell to’, and ‘how you are going to do it’. This is very important in terms of revenue generation for a business. This method is mostly used by B2B startups to attract clients and win them over. This is how you win, retain, and develop clients.

A sales strategy has to do with;

• An avatar of your chosen clients
• How to approach them
• The sales process
• How to retain them, etc.

Having a clear sales strategy is key to a successful business irrespective of its stage. It is the next most important thing after a business plan. It helps shape your organization and keep your sales team focused on the sales process already planned out.

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2. Focus on Lead Generation

Without leads, there is no business. You should have a system mapped out that will be bringing leads for your business.

How to Generate Leads for B2B Startups

For an early-stage B2B startup, the internet provides you with better and cheaper ways to generate qualified leads for your business.

B2B startups can make use of any of the digital marketing tools to get leads for their business. For a B2B, social media marketing, SEO, and email marketing are great options. But the more options you use for your business, the more leads you get.

For social media marketing, your sales team should focus on LinkedIn and Twitter. These are the two biggest B2B social platforms right now.

3. Build Trust with Potential Clients

Trust is not given, it is earned. And this statement couldn’t be truer for B2B startups. Building trust is at the foundation of all sales. Being the most trusted among your competitors can help win top clients for your business.

Before decision makers decide if to transact in a B2B environment, they first conduct research on the business to find out if they are what they say they are. Trust is one of the primary currencies in the business-to-business world.

As an early-stage startup, it is very important you build trust in every step of the client’s journey. From following up to service or product delivery.

Ways B2B Startups Can Establish Trust with Prospects

• Content: You can establish trust with prospects with your content. Content on your blog and social media page should tell what your brand is and what you stand for. Not just that, testimonials from past clients are also a good type of content that should be on your website and be shared on your social media pages.
• Honesty and Transparency: When prospects sense that you are honest and transparent with them, they will trust and show interest to transact business with you.
• Deliver Excellent Service/Product: This is the highest of all methods. When it is suspected that your product or service is top-notch, half of the trust battle is won already.
• Listen: Everyone wants a good listener when they are speaking. Listen more than you speak when having a conversation with prospects. Listen to them and see how you can help them without asking for a transaction.

In summary, you can quickly build trust with prospects when you show concern about their worries than being focused on money transactions.

4. Nurture Your Clients

When it comes to generating revenue in business, it is easier to get repeat business from satisfied clients than from new clients. This is why you must make sure your present clients are happy doing business with you.

How do you do that?

By putting effort into making sure they stay and repeat their purchases. Here are several ways you can do that;

• Celebrate with them when they’re celebrating
• Notify them of any updates that may concern them.
• Reward them with exclusive offers for continuous purchases.

Nurture your clients as you would do with close friends. Treat them like they will never leave. Don’t give them a reason to look outside, and they will never.

5. Making Sure Your Product/Service Delivers

There is nothing that can kill a business faster than a low-quality product or service. As you work on making your sales strategy perfect and getting more clients, make sure you are continuously working on improving your product or service.

If you don’t and your clients find out that one of your competitors delivers a better product or service than you do, they will have no choice but to switch. You should improve your product or service based on the feedback you get from clients.

6. Track Results

What is working and what is not working? This is one question you should be asking your team as a founder. What are your results from your LinkedIn ads? How many people are visiting your website daily? How many leads are you getting and where are they coming from?

Track sales and marketing. Track revenue and expenses. Don’t play with these data.

When you know what is happening in your startup, you will be able to know if any area of the business needs attention.

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7. Network at All Time

As a founder, it is your duty to always network with potential clients to grow your startup. The more you connect with people, the better your chances of closing a deal. Attend networking events, seminars, and other gatherings in your industry and exchange contacts.

Most importantly, don’t forget to follow up on your contacts because people will easily forget you as you were not the only one they had a conversation with on the day of the event.

Networking is not only done offline. B2B founders can still network via social media platforms. LinkedIn and Twitter are platforms for businesses to connect and close deals.

Whether you are a sales manager or founder trying to boost sales for your startup, these sales tips will help you increase conversion and close more deals.