Customer Acquisition, Sales & Marketing

For many Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the business to business (B2B) market the prevailing attitude of "if we have a great product or service people will just buy it" is prominent somewhere in the organisation's thinking.

And whilst a great product or service is an absolute requirement for growth, without a clear understanding of what customers need and an absolute focus on putting these customer needs first, an organisation will never achieve the growth it is capable of.

For instance, if your customer facing material includes content on 'Our History' or similar - TAKE IT OUT!

When you first are speaking with customers, they do not care about you or your history, they have their own problems they need to solve. (Your history and credibility come later when they are readying to buy and are assessing risk). Your initial contact with potential customers should be all about them; their challenges, their market, their business. Once you fully understand their situation you can be both confident your product or service actually can help them and confident they see you as truly interested in helping them first.

To be successful in business and sales remember the adage "you have one mouth and two ears, use them in that proportion".

Once you have oriented your thinking to be truly customer focused, you now need to build a sales culture. The very first place any successful sales organisation starts is with prospecting. Prospecting once was the domain of cold calling through the Yellow Pages, and whilst I am a firm believer in the power of cold calling, today there are many different ways of prospecting, or filling your sales funnel. The best method depends on your business and is it is likely that the best method is a mix of many.

Another attitude I hear regularly is that a better website will lead to increased sales. Whilst it is true that a poor website may indeed deter potential customers, a fantastic website by itself will not automatically lead to more customers, after all they have to be able to find you first! It has been estimated that there are <insert ref> websites in the world. If you want to stand out from the crowd, even a little, a well thought out and consistent marketing strategy is required. Your marketing strategy is intrinsically linked to your business plan and expands in much more detail on the strategic directions contained within your business plan. In B2B companies it is crucial your marketing and sales plans and teams are aligned and complementary. Too many times has a lack of courageous communication (direct but respectful) led to misalignment resulting in sub-optimal performance.

A company which focuses on a customer success culture can create the holy grail of B2B sales - Customer references. Society is moving more to trusting the feedback peers provide above the opinion of sales people and so called industry experts. If you can have your customers sell on your behalf not only will you convert more conversations to customers you have effectively increased the size of your sales team! Word of mouth is after all the most effective way to acquire customers.

Remember to be successful in business and sales remember "you have one mouth and two ears", use them in that proportion.