The sales representative is dynamic: the role keeps changing and, exciting as it may be, is equally challenging.
B2B companies are no exception to these entities that face their fair share of challenges. While some of the difficulties might be industry-specific, identifying the top problems in B2B sales will be critical in enhancing a sales approach and keeping sales performance high. While thousands of B2B companies fail, many can be successful over the long term.
Common Challenges With B2B Sales Funnels and How to Overcome Them
What does it take? Most of these common pitfalls may sound familiar to you. Learn more about overcoming them.
1. Adopting New Technology
Technological advancements improve unimaginably with each passing day. As businesses implement advanced technologies such as AI, machine learning, data science, and blockchain to make operations more efficient, the first phase of implementation can disrupt normal business activities. The significant challenges that most B2B businesses face today are scaling up with advanced technology and integrating technology into business processes.
Technology will have the opportunity to serve myriad companies because of the numerous ways to ease functions and increase revenue. However, implementing new marketing automation technologies, SEO, social media campaigns, content marketing, etc., could be challenging.
While there is no direct solution to this challenge, the only way to ensure minimum disruption is by training and continuously encouraging every team to stay updated.
2. Lack of Team Training
Training the in-house team can be challenging for B2B companies when trying a new marketing strategy. Poorly trained sales professionals can derail an entire sales team. Even if a solid B2B sales process exists, difficulties can arise when training is outside the offered solution.
How can businesses that have traditionally relied on traditional marketing practices shift to digital marketing? They can either hire new talent to handle the work or provide training to existing employees. Both of these can be expensive and lengthy. It is best to hire the services of a marketing agency that specializes in your industry instead.
3. Lack of Customer Confidence
One big challenge of B2B sales compared to B2C sales is overcoming a need for more investment confidence. Often, the investment is far less than a prospective buyer thinks about paying for their company. Changing from their current use and trying something new can be a complex transition. Also, a heftier monetary investment and a changing investment can cause a pause. Most businesses want evidence that your solution has worked for others in similar situations. Most organizations want proof that the solution you’re selling them has worked for others in similar situations. Thus, your sales and marketing team needs to maintain regular and effective communication and develop comprehensive case studies that provide a clear and concise overview of your company’s solutions in profitable ways for others.
4. Too much sales data
Pay more attention to the importance of simplicity in B2B sales. The biggest pitfalls of a B2B selling pitch are that the pitch needs to be more concise and loaded with information, which can lead to saving time and money. That is much information for someone to decipher and process. Yet, it becomes a bottleneck if too little data is provided for analyzing too many options or solutions get overly complex, leading to a business burdened with information that may delay the sales cycle. Focus now on reiterating the main benefits of your top value propositions. Focus more on the type of analytics and information desired to be seen rather than bombarding the entire process with loads of data.
5. Prolonged Sales Cycle
Compared to B2C sales, the average B2B buying cycle can be more complex. This is often because there are several decision-makers and more complicated deals. A prospect can sit at the top of the sales funnel for several months before advancing to the next sales cycle, as the sales process involves multiple decision-makers and complex deals. So, balancing moving potential buyers along the sales cycle without appearing pushy is crucial. Building trust, creating long-term relationships, and nurturing are key. So, set up marketing automation tools to follow up and communicate with qualified leads, allowing salespeople to focus on leads further along the sales cycle.
6. Lack of Content
Establishing fresh relationships with prospects is challenging if you start from scratch when outlining your offer. Without proper brand awareness and strategic thinking, you can fall behind rivals and lose prospects you would have won over as new clients. The two major cases are inadequate content for digital marketing and insufficient content for the right audience. Using content marketing techniques to your advantage can help you become a sales leader by increasing the visibility and reach of your goods or services through blogging and social media campaigns.
7. Undefined Sales Process
A strongly organized sales process is vital to a B2B sales process because of the extent of control that will be held over the entire sales team. Even though every sales representative has acquired skills and competencies, all must align and follow a detailed process. A well-defined and effective process can support all other efforts.
A simple B2B sales process involves:
- Identifying and qualifying prospects,
- understanding their needs and challenges,
- presenting a solution,
- closing the deal,
- And identifying further business opportunities.
Revisit the fundamentals if necessary. Take the time to walk through the various steps with the team and collectively assess whether any areas need updates or enhancements. You can schedule training to teach new tactics and sustain positive behavioral changes.
8. Email marketing campaign
Email marketing generates leads and keeps existing and prospective buyers updated on the company’s latest offerings. Unsurprisingly, B2B and B2C companies prefer email over all other brand communication methods. But they also have higher expectations for its quality than ever before. Suppose you don’t follow email marketing best practices, personalize your communications, or manage your email lists well. In that case, your messages will probably end up in spam folders, damaging your company’s reputation.
Here are some quick tips to follow:
- Know and adhere to the CAN-SPAM act
- Only email subscribers who have given consent
- Honor unsubscribe requests
- Don’t send too many emails
- Make your emails well-designed, engaging, and valuable
- Segment your messaging by customer group
Ensure your sales playbook is mapped out for every team member to improve the B2B sales process. Revisit the fundamentals if necessary. Walk through the various steps with the team and assess whether any areas need updates or enhancements.
9. Poor collaboration between marketing and sales teams
Although the sales and marketing departments seem interconnected in theory, this is only sometimes fully implemented. Finalizing the two departments is crucial for generating leads and acquiring new customers.
Prospective customers generally first meet marketing and sales representatives before becoming customers. Poor collaboration between the marketing and sales departments breeds an information silo, which doesn’t furnish sales reps with the information they need to close prospects. On the other hand, robust collaboration between marketing and sales takes a business a long way.
10. Measuring ROI
B2B sales face challenges in measuring ROI, as salespeople often focus on healthy department budget returns. To accurately measure the
11. Too much sales data
The abundance of data available to sales reps has led to a common challenge in B2B sales. Navigating this extensive data requires focusing on essential metrics and lead behavior crucial for sales success. This surge in data can be attributed mainly to the array of tools providing diverse customer and sales data. In response to this trend, sales teams often subscribe to multiple tools to comprehensively understand their prospects. However, these tools frequently inundate them with unnecessary data, underscoring the importance of selecting tools that deliver the pertinent information.
12. Increased competition
The Internet has blurred the world’s geographical boundaries. Your competitor may be somewhere other than your region, but it will still compete with you. They can sell their products and even contact their prospects from anywhere in the world; what does it matter if you are from Asia or the US? Your prospects can quickly check out your competitor’s product offerings and interact with them even when you are still onboarding them. They can visit your website or competitors’ websites to check product specifications and even schedule a call with your competitors’ sales reps.
The global B2B market makes the game a little more complicated since the leads know what your competitors offer. Some may inquire about features that seem absent in your offerings but are available in your competitors’ products. No matter how strong your sales team is, competition exists.
13. Content Marketing
Any business with a proper content marketing strategy will inevitably stay behind its rivals. Businesses use different types of content, such as blog articles and social media posts, but sometimes, it depends on where the customer is in the sales process.
For instance, you can post blog articles and videos to generate demand in the awareness stage of the sales funnel, where potential consumers realize they need your product or services (or both).
As potential buyers progress through the sales funnel and move into the interest and decision stages, the next objective is to encourage them to subscribe to mailing lists by offering gated content, such as an ebook, whitepaper, or other long-form content.
14. Search Engine Optimization strategy
It might sound too blunt, but a business only exists if listed on Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). No matter how excellent a commodity or service you provide, you are practically nonexistent if you are not searchable online.
While email and social media marketing help drive visitors to your B2B website, content marketing and SEO remain the primary organic traffic generator.
Combining content marketing with SEO at every phase of the sales funnel and the consumer’s journey can have excellent results.
15. B2B Lead Generation
As you may already know, consistently generating leads can take much work. Getting the leads you value as a B2B company is even more difficult.
Consistent lead generation requires well-deliberate marketing campaigns, which start with creating valuable and engaging content. To enhance your lead generation efforts, hire an experienced B2B lead generation company.
The sales team must generate sales-qualified leads (SQLs) to improve lead conversion rates. These leads have taken action to show they want to buy your product. Managing and tailoring your content is vital to attracting, nurturing, and converting leads more effectively.
Conclusion
Navigating the B2B sales funnel involves overcoming various challenges that can impede progress. By understanding these common issues and implementing effective strategies, businesses can enhance their sales processes, improve lead conversion rates, and achieve long-term success. Stay proactive, adapt to changes, and continuously refine your approach to excel in the competitive world of B2B sales.
By addressing these common challenges, sales teams can significantly improve their performance and drive better results in the B2B sales landscape.
Author Bio :
Siva Koni Reddy: With over 7 years of experience in B2B marketing and digital presence strategies, I’m excited to share my expertise with those seeking to expand their online reach and drive business growth. Read my article for valuable insights on enhancing your digital presence and achieving success.
