The field of B2B sales is just like any other field of endeavor – you have to be constantly reviewing what’s working – and what’s not – in order to stay on top of your game. If you’re stubbornly clinging to the past, you won’t be able to move on. So try to avoid these top 3 mistakes that B2B sales leaders make.
#1: Turning sales into just a numbers game
It seems obvious to say that B2B sales leaders should be focused more on the results – sales – than on the sales process. But that’s not always the case – and especially when the sales are not coming in as planned. There’s a tendency to produce more and more work to keep the leads coming in – more industry lists, more calls, and more follow-up calls. In a worst-case scenario, of course, B2B sales leaders are just creating work to keep their sales teams busy rather than constructively attempting to change the sales process.
The “keep ‘em busy” approach threatens to turn B2B sales into just a numbers game. The problem is that you tend to lose focus on quality in search of quantity. If you’re just playing a numbers game, you’re focused on grabbing as many leads as possible, not on grabbing high-quality leads. You’re focused on just making calls, because you look busy when you make calls, and who ever got fired for making too many sales calls, right?
#2: Measuring the wrong things
Yes, data can be an extraordinarily important part of the B2B sales process, but you have to be measuring the right things. For example, simply measuring the number of sales calls has to be one of the worst possible things you could measure. That’s because if you have customers who are close to making a purchase, they’re going to have very specific questions about your company’s products and solutions, and will have very specific questions about how their needs are being addressed. You’ll be spending so much time on these customers, that you won’t have time for making a prodigious number of sales calls.
And “call volume” is not the only wrong thing you can measure. You might be so focused on bottom-line sales performance that you focus only on what you can measure. That means qualitative factors might be harder to wrap your arms around – but it’s exactly those qualitative factors that are the key to making sales.
#3: Being afraid to change the sales process
There’s a general rule of B2B selling that you need to be constantly tweaking and adjusting your process. And if it’s truly not working, you need to be willing to rip things up and start from scratch. That could be a problem, though, if your B2B sales leader has a lot vested in his or her process.
That’s the equivalent of a football coach deciding that a specific offensive strategy simply isn’t working, and ripping up the whole scheme mid-season. You can see where this leads – you’re either acclaimed as a genius, or… fired. Which might explain why so many B2B sales leaders are so willing to bank on what’s brought them success in the past rather than experimenting with something new.
So there you have it – those are three big mistakes that B2B sales leaders make. To be effective, you need to be actively reviewing what works, and have the courage and faith to change things. Business is not static – and leaders need to respond to the dynamism of business with dynamism of their own.
Image: Designed by Freepik
Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.