B2B Sales Advice: Only Talk to People With Decision Making Power

As your business grows, you will eventually start looking for B2B customers.

It is an entirely different type of customer than B2C:

• higher paying (deeper pockets)
• far more stable (corporations only switch suppliers when they absolutely need to) [Note: The exception to this rule is if the product you’re selling is an undifferentiated commodity]
• far easier to handle (corporate customers are less demanding than consumers, believe it or not)

If you charge $250k a year for your product/service, you can get to $1M ARR with just 4 B2B customers.

This sounds huge and “impossible” to people who’ve never dealt with corporations before, but for them it’s just 1 executive’s basic salary.

The hardest part is getting the B2B customer in the first place.

The place most businesses fuck it up is that they pitch the wrong people at the corporation.

If you can’t reach the right person WHO HAS DECISION MAKING POWER, you are wasting your time.

Before you talk to any corporation, look up their hierarchy on Glassdoor and LinkedIn.

You need to do this so you know who to try and contact.

You cannot figure out whether someone has decision making power by their title alone.

Just because someone has the title of “VP” or “Director” does not mean they have any actual authority.

In many firms, VP is lower level staff (similar to analyst/associate).

Director is sometimes the mid-tier (manager level).

It varies from industry to industry and firm to firm.

These titles vary in meaning for different reasons.

For example, in consulting firms, they give people better sounding titles so they can bill clients more. In other places, it’s so that customers feel like they are being attended to by “important” people.

Don’t waste time explaining your product or service to someone with no decision making authority.

Because you will get NOWHERE.

People with no authority have inflated egos and will waste your time asking you 10,000 questions, will try to negotiate prices hard, and when it comes time to pay, they’ll say “I need to ask my boss” (you will never hear from them again).

A very basic example of this is when a client of mine was looking to raise money from a VC firm. He’d been dealing with a few VPs of that firm for months and getting nowhere.

I looked up the organizational hierarchy of that VC firm in front of him and it turned out that the lowest tier of employee in that firm is a “VP”. They have no power and all they can do is bring deals to a senior person who can then bring that deal to a partner.

No wonder this guy was getting nowhere. I told my client to make these “VPs” fuck off and save himself the time.

He later emailed a partner at the VC firm who replied to him and told him that they weren’t interested because they already had an investment in a direct competitor. In other words, the VP was literally just wasting his time.

The 3 Things You Need to Make a B2B Sale

1) You need to reach someone with decision making power. They should be able to say “yes I’m buying this” without needing to ask a superior.

If you are talking to anyone else besides this person, you are wasting your time.

Find their email address and send them a good email. Yes you will need to use some copywriting skills and send a personalized email, not the typical spam.

But nothing beats an in-person meeting.

The best way to get it done is to get a meeting via a reference. Ask someone to introduce you. LinkedIn is really good for this because you’ll be surprised how often you will have a mutual friend.

Offer the middleman a “finder’s fee” so they are interested in making it happen. If you make it lucrative for them to work with you, you’d be surprised how often they will go out of their way to hook you up (vouch for you, etc.).

2) They have to need your product or service.

High pressure sales tactics don’t work well on corporations because of the nature of corporates. They are slow and have bureaucracy of their own.

This is where market research comes in. You need to find real buyers with a real problem.

For example, if you’re selling an online queueing software for restaurants, you need to go and visit restaurant chains with long queues. Take photos and show the decision making person how your product will help them.

Don’t try to go broad market and pitch everyone with a spam email. Analyze every lead one by one and see how much they need your product/service.

One B2B deal is equivalent to 500-1000 B2C deals, so it deserves the extra attention.

3) A no brainer offer.

This is true in all cases but can be really helpful with B2B where the most important thing is getting your foot in the door.

Typically offer the first quarter/batch at near cost just so they can try your product/service out. Offer a money back guarantee if you can.

If your product works and saves them time, money, or makes their systems smoother, they will pay. Corporates have deep pockets and they pay.

Just make sure your product delivers and that there aren’t a lot of hard edges. Once you are entrenched in their workflow, you are there to stay unless there is some very major change (e.g. your product stops working or the company gets restructured).

Corporations are very resistant to change so getting kicked out is as hard as getting in. Make your offer such a no-brainer that only a fool way say no to it.

– Harsh Strongman