Enterprise Selling occurs when you demonstrate where customer needs meet your company’s innovative capabilities. According to Mark Dancer, “B2B companies should work more closely with partners not to specify how they work, but to understand how they work. By comparing methods across multiple partners, new insights may be gained that can lead to unexpected innovation opportunities.”
Know your Customer
Spend time getting to know your customer’s business. Analyze that business in terms of your capabilities. A salesperson’s priority is to understand where each player fits in terms of the customer’s and the distributor’s business objectives. Build customer relationships with key executives in sales, marketing, operations, and administration. Question each on their specific needs.
Learn New Methods
Enterprise Selling involves the use of new sales methods. To make this type of selling work, both sales people and customers need to learn about these new ways to transact business. Train your sales team in Enterprise Selling techniques. Lead customers through any new external sales processes so they are aware of its value to their bottom line. For example, once a distributor makes the transition to eCommerce, he must teach the customer how to use it to their benefit.
Ask Questions
The goal of Enterprise Selling is to implement changes that enhance the traditional role of the distributor’s value chain partnership. To make this work, you need to ask questions. Are you training your field sales force to understand and take advantage of these changing trends in the industry? Are your reps speaking to the customer about how to achieve better outcomes in their own language? Do reps know the stakeholders and their reasons for making a decision to use your products or services?
Create Customer Value
As new ideas gain traction, intentional mindfulness is needed to stay aware of how value is created for customers. Remember, Enterprise Selling works when customer needs are met with your innovative capabilities.
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