Do You Have a Predatory B2B Sales Culture?

Working with as many sales organizations as I have over the last 20 years, I've had a very broad exposure to every possible scenario in B2B sales. Everything from relationship-based, super-engaged teams and reps with high commitment of success to their clients to the reps that are numbers-focused, couldn't care less about their prospects other than the revenue they represent, and even referring to their prospects in hunting terms "can I kill it"or "go for the throat," and many other bloodthirsty terms.

B2B Sales Practices that Help or Hinder

The delta in the quality of the customer-side of sales practices is becoming more and more visible now because of the permanent shifts in the selling landscape and the platforms to promote (and tell on) a company's self-centered culture. Some of them include:

• Social media. When you are a ME only focused person or company, everything you post and communicate is centered on "Buy our stuff." If you notice the companies that are very BUY OUR STUFF focused, they have low engagement and have few followers. Even huge companies have just a few, and many are their employees or a few customers that took the time.
• Marketing Automation. Marketing automation rocks when it is in the right hands...given to the wrong person, it is like giving an automatic weapon level of capacity to now produce gobs of communication focused on "buy our stuff."
• Sales Reps.  Now that buyers don't need reps so much anymore to make a decision, there are 3 options for reps. 1) learn how to add value and become aligned with how your prospect is buying and how you can enhance that experience. 2) Become more manipulative and use fear, subtle intimidation, and passive aggressive tactics. Become more aggressive with who you have. 3) Talk to more prospects, just keep 'em coming and throw out the long-term prospects or ones that are high maintenance and get the good ones in a sales cycle that is about as fun as a root canal.

It All Starts at the Top

It's critical CXO's in companies look downstream to see what is happening on the front lines. Especially if they have been around long enough as a company to go through a few era's of buyer profiles. Some companies had phones ringing off the hook 10 years ago with prospects that wanted what they have, and today there is a lot of real competition with leaner, less expensive competitors and buyers have a lot of options. It's harder to get new customers, and the ones they have are always at risk. Where does the predator sales culture fit into this?

1. Your prospects and customers should have nothing but awesome experiences interacting with your company. From their first cold call to reaching out to their rep with an issue--they need to feel the love all the time. Outreach should be focused not on "Hi, just checking in to see if it's time to buy more stuff." I remember once, my ISP was down from a storm.  I was annoyed enough that such a large company had such a poorly executed DR plan--but in the middle of all this turmoil I am having with email, site outages, etc., their rep called to sell me more stuff.  Their sales management should have been all over making sure existing customers were getting the best TLC ever during that crisis.
2. Your reps need to make sure they address issues and make sure they reinforce to clients they value them.  I have a client that made a significant investment in a platform a few years ago, during the sales cycle the rep was all over it--best friends.  After the deal was inked and it started rolling out, there were a lot of hiccups and problems. 45 days or so into it I asked the client when was the last time they heard from their rep, he said not since the day they signed the deal.

B2B Sales and Prospecting Breakdowns

Some of the sales breakdowns are rooted in a lack of communicating innovation in sales best-practices. Reps aren't systematically being educated about who their buyers are today and what they are doing. They are selling to a buyer profile that is greatly evolved and no longer exists in that form, and they don't really get that. 

The other fix is hiring people that get it. Educate CSO's and Sales VP's on what is really happening out there and WHY they are losing deals and customers, and WHY their reps can clear a room when they walk in. Maybe the Marketing VP feels all meetings should be onsite, that was fine 10 years ago but today most meetings are virtual, shorter, more frequent, and have a distributed executive team.  Executives want to be cautious they are not mirroring their own personal preferences onto their prospects and therefore missing a greater opportunity.  

There's a carelessness associated with predatory sales tactics. One major one, is the prospect only represents revenue--all of the personal aspects, emotional factors playing into choices, or other outside influences are secondary to the sale...the "kill." Another careless action is just throwing information together to respond to inquiries. Just the other day, I got an email from a sales rep--I had a question so I took them up on the offer of advice. The response back was in 4 different fonts, colors, sizes, and looked like some electronic ransom note. My assistant said "do you WANT their advice?" It was comical.

Some things companies can do to move to a customer centric approach:

1. Make sure the CXO level really understands what is happening on the front lines. Aligning with real-world sales practices makes the difference. Educate VP's, Directors, and reps on what is really happening.
2. Making sure customers have great experiences with you as much as possible. Everything from sharing content that isn't about you but them, research, 3rd party articles. Put your best resources on the front lines to reach out and deal with them, not low-level people looking for appointments.
3. Create a culture of customer value on the sales team. I know people are working bigger territories,lots of pressure, and don't have a lot of time. Automated templates will help be responsive and optimize their communication. Squirro can help them by even pushing out content that "hey your client so and so just got an award..." you can then send them a congrats note.

Don't be stuck in the "Buy Our Stuff" mode.  You can break out of it and start giving to your prospect and customer community and THAT's what starts to create "sticky relationships" and loyalty. The personal experience prospects and customers have with you and your firm goes a LONG way to keep and continue to get new business.