B2B sales team – its effectiveness depends on many components. After all, it needs more than just the customer’s purchasing motivation. Success depends mainly on the proper management of this motivation, sales processes and the optimal division of roles in the sales team. In this article, we look at how the various functions in the sales department affect the effectiveness and success of B2B projects.
B2B purchasing motivation differs significantly from B2C. In B2B, purchasing decisions are rarely made on an individual basis. For example, a salesperson’s personal preferences or charm often do not play a decisive role. Even if you have already succeeded in gaining the trust of one or two people, this will not necessarily translate into convincing the other decision makers.
The decision-making process in B2B is generally longer, which weakens the initial incentive effect. In B2C, on the other hand, purchasing decisions are usually made quickly, the buying process is simpler, and transactions often involve smaller amounts.
In B2B, buying and selling processes are fraught with inertia. The motivational effect occurs at the beginning, but over time it becomes a less decisive factor. In addition, other people are involved during the process, the process gets longer, and this lowers the level of motivation.
We can, of course, talk about purchases of spare parts or raw materials, among other things. However, these purchasing processes are different from investments in new technologies, such as an IT system. If a company seeks to carry out a digital transformation and, for example, implement a system: warehouse or production management, or automate paper processes – such a change in the organization is always motivated by some factor. Such an impulse can be, for example: an error, an unplanned high expense or the dismissal of an employee. It is at this stage that the motivation to buy is high. After that, however, the company begins to study market solutions, meets with different partners, learns, tries to understand and compare different options. And the motivation level drops.
One may be looking for an expert who not only knows the product our company offers, but also has highly developed soft skills, is a great analyst and has a business acumen to match. Finding such a hero can be very difficult, however, because managing the B2B sales process requires multidisciplinary skills. Therefore, it is worth building a team that will allow you to work well with the customer at every stage of the sales process:
In conclusion, when managing B2B sales, it is worthwhile to assign appropriate (according to their predispositions, skills or experience) roles to individual team members. After all, the entire process of selling and working with customers requires both appropriate technical knowledge and interpersonal and management skills.
The whole thing should, of course, be supervised by the commercial director. The presence of a leader who can efficiently coordinate the work of the team is extremely valuable in such cases. However, it is worth remembering that success in depends on the involvement of the entire team. Leadership in such a team should be based on clearly defined goals, transparent communication and the ability to motivate the team to work in a changing environment. Effective leadership of such processes paves the way for building long-term relationships with customers.
