How to Reach Business Decision Makers in B2B Sales
When you are just starting out your career in B2B sales, one of the biggest obstacles you will face in closing deals is finding the right people to speak to; people that have the authority to close deals and make those big decisions.
While every prospect in the B2C world is a possible customer — with each consumer capable of making their own buying decisions — the B2B world operates differently. Getting to speak to the business decision maker in a company about your game-changing products or services is not so straightforward. Read on if you want to be able to increase your chances of cutting through the noise and reaching decision makers in a company that can make things happen for your business — and your commission figures.
What is a Business Decision Maker?
First and foremost, it’s important to be able to recognize what a business decision maker looks like in a company. Growing organizations are required to make strategic buying decisions on all kinds of goods and services throughout a financial year. A business decision maker is typically a high-level employee, often a department manager or even a head of department. These figureheads will oversee maintaining productivity within their respective teams and may be given the responsibility to take strategic decisions such as capital investments to acquire new products or services that can improve output and efficiencies.
While this may be the case in bigger corporate firms, it’s less likely that heads of department will be the decision makers in a company that’s considerably smaller. In this scenario, it could be the company owner or CEO that has the final say on all strategic decisions. When preparing your B2B sales pitch, it’s important to know the scale of a business you are reaching out to first. This will enable you to go in at the right level at the first time of asking.
Business decision makers shouldn’t be viewed with trepidation as a B2B salesperson. In fact, they should be respected. After all, they are the gatekeepers of businesses. They weigh up all the relevant information, compare the alternatives and make analytical decisions that can accelerate business growth. They have their company’s best interests at heart and rarely make quick, rash decisions.
Who Are the Decision Makers in a Company?
If you want to understand the potential business decision makers of a target company, it’s a good idea to map out the organization first. This is a relatively easy task if the company is public, with their 10-K filing detailing their corporate structure. It’s not so straightforward when it comes to private companies.
At this juncture, it’s a good idea to formulate the ideal persona for your target decision makers in a company. Decide the key qualities your target business decision maker will have. Will they be required to manage budgets? Must they have strategic oversight of a company’s operations? Should they have a lengthy period of service to give them more influence and gravitas internally?
To help you learn more about potential decision makers in a company, you could also identify mutual connections with your targets. By liaising with your mutual connections, it may be possible to glean more information on your targets. Your mutual contacts may be able to verify that they are a credible decision maker to save you valuable time. In this instance, your mutual contacts could offer a direct route into your target decision maker by referring your business to them directly and verifying your legitimacy.
How to Reach Business Decision Makers in B2B Sales?
Once you are confident that you have verified the legitimacy of target decision markets in a company, the next hurdle to overcome as a B2B salesperson is contacting them in the simplest and most direct way possible.
At Lusha, we have developed a seamless integration with Salesforce, one of the world’s leading customer relationship management (CRM) tools for businesses, making it easier to boost your sales productivity. While some sales cycles can result in having to go through half-a-dozen if not more business decision makers before closing a deal, our ‘Lusha for Salesforce’ product can help B2B sales teams focus on the contacts that matter most.
When it comes to tentative inbound leads, you can use Lusha for Salesforce to pull through all relevant contact data to identify and qualify the most valuable leads for your company. Our lead routing functionality can help you ‘score’ leads and prioritize the hottest opportunities.
Our Chrome plugin also makes it easier to validate and engage with business decision makers on LinkedIn. Many B2B salespeople will utilize LinkedIn when mapping out a company’s organization and identifying ideal personas within a business. Our Chrome extension enriches the profiles of those of genuine interest to your company by authenticating contact information in real-time, in total compliance with the necessary data regulations.
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Originally published at https://www.lusha.com on August 17, 2020.
