Here’s the TL;DR in case you don’t have time to read this long article: B2B sales involves a business selling a product or service to another business. That's it.
B2B sales are booming with an estimated $6 trillion in revenue by 2024. But business-to-business sales growth gets more difficult as competition grows.
So how can you tap into the growth while maintaining profitability?
This resource will answer every question you have about B2B sales, with tips, strategies, and examples of B2B sales.
What is B2B sales? Details explained
B2B sales is a type of sales that refers to “business-to-business”, or “B2B” for short, that are selling to other businesses.
You can think of B2B sales as the business of one company selling a product or service to another business.
Whether it’s selling a project management tool to another company or selling physical goods to companies that need them to function, B2B sales is usually focused on:
- Streamlining business functions or processes
- Reducing costs and increasing business revenue
- Innovating the way a business operates
Most B2B sales refer to tech or software sales because most companies nowadays are looking to invest in new technology for their business operations.
The difference between B2B sales and B2C sales
You’ve probably heard about B2C sales if you know about B2B sales.
B2B sales stands for business-to-business sales while B2C sales stands for business-to-consumer sales. But that’s not the only difference between B2B vs B2C sales.
The main factor being that in B2B you are selling businesses whereas in B2C, you are selling to consumers or individuals.
The key differences between B2C sales and B2B sales are:
- The customer base
- The sales processes and operations
- Price and volume of sales
Explore how B2B sales and B2C sales differ in each aspect below.
B2B vs B2C sales customer base
In B2C sales, companies sell products or services to individual customers who are buying for their own interests, needs, or personal challenges–like you and me.
For example, a toothpaste company selling your favorite toothpaste product is doing B2C sales.
With B2B sales, companies sell products or services to other companies or businesses.
For example, a project management software company can sell their tool to construction companies.
It all comes down to who you’re selling to.
B2B vs B2C sales process and operations
Because you’re dealing with different types of customer bases (businesses vs individual consumers) the B2B sales process looks quite different from the B2C sales process.
In B2B sales…
- The sales cycle is usually longer and more complex.
- The sales process involves many more stakeholders and decision-makers.
- The process involves meetings, product demos, presentations, and negotiations.
- The sales team is heavily responsible for sales prospecting.
In B2C sales…
- The sales cycle is usually shorter and more direct.
- The process focuses on a single end-customer rather than multiple decision-makers.
- The process usually focuses on a single transaction that’s “one-and-done” rather than an ongoing sales relationship.
- The B2C sales process relies heavily on consumer marketing for inbound/outbound leads.
B2B vs B2C sales price and volume
If you’re doing B2B sales, it’s common to close less deals, but at a much higher price point.
You’re dealing with a much more complex and longer sales process in B2B sales, so while you might not close as many sales deals as you would in B2C sales you’re selling a higher volume of products or services with a higher price tag.
You could be selling subscriptions, packages, or products and services to large enterprises with a bigger budget.
If you’re doing B2C sales, you’ll probably have a higher volume of one-time transactions at smaller price points.
It’s like comparing the sales process of selling a single cosmetic product to a single consumer vs selling an annual software subscription worth $25,000+ to a large business.
You’re likely to see higher price points, less closed sales, but potentially more business revenue in B2B sales.
Types of B2B sales, with examples
From a quick Google search on B2B sales, you might see the term “b2b tech sales” used interchangeably with B2B sales.
The truth is, B2B sales aren’t limited to just tech sales.
As the B2B industry continues to evolve, so do the types of B2B sales.
Here’s a brief overview of the main three types of B2B sales you might encounter:
- Wholesale/distribution sales
- Software and technology sales
- Supplier and producer sales
Wholesale/distributor sales
This type of B2B sales involves selling goods in bulk to other businesses instead of direct to consumers (DTC).
A wholesale business sells products at discounted prices to retailers, distributors, or other businesses so they can resell these goods or use them internally.
Examples of wholesale/distributor B2B sales: The company Alibaba is known for selling wholesale clothing in bulk at cheaper prices to other clothing retailers who buy from Alibaba, put their branding on the clothing, and resells these products directly to consumers.
B2B SaaS sales
B2B tech sales, or software as a service (SaaS) sales, is the most well-known example of business-to-business sales.
This type of business-to-business sales involves a company selling a technological software/tool/platform/services to another company.
Example of B2B SaaS sales: Seamless.AI is a sales intelligence tool that sells AI-powered sales prospecting software to sales teams at large companies.
🎙️ Want to learn more about B2B SaaS sales? Listen to this podcast clip from the CEO of Seamless.AI, Brandon Bornancin, about “The Harsh Truth About the SaaS Sales”.
Supplier and producer sales
Supplier and producer B2B sales involves a business that sources or creates raw materials needed to manufacture a product and sells these raw materials to other companies that manufacture the product.
Example of supplier and producer B2B sales: A railroad raw material company sells and supplies their raw materials to railroad manufacturing companies to build the product.
What is the B2B sales process?
Regardless of the type of B2B sales you’re looking to do, all B2B sales usually follow the same framework or process.
You might find that some sales cycles are longer and more complex in some industries than others, but the B2B sales process can be boiled down to a few core stages.
The B2B sales cycle looks like this:
In B2B sales, your goal is to strategically work through each stage of the B2B sales process according to your prospects’ maturity in the sales funnel.
Here’s what the B2B sales funnel looks like:
- Awareness
- Interest
- Consideration
- Intent
- Evaluation
- Purchase
- Renewal
For example, a new sales lead that’s only in the awareness stage of the sales funnel is not ready to buy. They’re not even at the “interest” stage yet. This lead is still at the top of the funnel, or a TOFU lead for short.
It wouldn’t make sense to reach out to a TOFU lead with a sales offer right out of the gate. You need to put in the work to help them get through each stage of the sales funnel.
Sales prospects who are at the bottom of the funnel, or a BOFU prospect, are ready to convert at that moment of time.
Below, we’ll cover each of the stages of the B2B sales process and mark each one with the corresponding sales funnel stage accordingly.
1. Sales prospecting
Sales funnel stage: Awareness and interest
Sales prospecting is the first and most important part of the sales cycle.
This first stage is a time for exploration and discovery of new personas (leads) and sales prospects (qualified as potential customers and deemed likely to buy).
📕 Learn more about B2B sales prospecting in our ultimate guide “What is Sales Prospecting?” for strategies, tips from a CEO, and best practices for prospecting smarter and more efficiently.
Sales prospecting isn’t just about finding the perfect prospects that fit your ideal customer profile (ICP).
It’s about identifying which prospects are the most likely to buy from you, strategizing how your product aligns with their unique needs, and preparing your first outreach to them.
This first stage of the B2B sales process is usually the most difficult because finding the right prospects is time-consuming and difficult to precisely narrow down your target market.
Our suggestion is to use a sales prospecting tool like Seamless.AI to help you do B2B sales prospecting in real-time with the help of AI. Sales prospecting tools serve as a lending hand to cut down the hours you spend looking for prospects down to minutes, and spend more time researching your contacts.
2. Reaching out to sales leads
Sales funnel stage: Awareness and interest
After you’ve come up with a list of your ideal prospects, it’s time to bite the bullet and reach out to your list of B2B contacts.
Don’t know where to start?
You can reach out to b2b sales leads via email, phone, or social media.
The most difficult part about making contact with B2B sales prospects is figuring out how to craft an outreach message that gets the conversation going.
✍️ Here are a few resources to help you in your B2B sales outreach:
- 17 B2B Email Outreach Templates and Best Practices
- Ultimate Guide to Cold Calling
- The 10 Best Prompts to Start a Sales Conversation
3. Lead qualification
Sales funnel stage: Consideration and intent
As the conversations flow with your B2B sales contacts, you need to qualify your leads.
This means to start prioritizing the leads who are most likely to convert and buy from you.
A huge part of lead qualification is about actively listening to your prospects and gaining a deeper understanding of each leads’ industry, pain points, and buying behavior.
Don’t just use your sales outreach emails or video calls to sell something. Treat this time as an opportunity to glean more information from your prospects to help you craft a strategy to close the deal.
Lead qualification isn’t a simple surface-level assessment of “Will they buy or will they not?”.
You need to establish clear criteria about the conditions that qualify a lead. You should consider factors like their budget, timeline, and decision-making authority.
📕 Related: Learn 10 ways to determine qualified leads in “How to Qualify Leads”.
4. Nurturing the lead
Sales funnel stage: Consideration and intent
The lead nurturing stage of the B2B sales process can be lengthy, but it plays a pivotal role in getting your sales prospect to the finish line (closing the deal!).
According to Hubspot,
“Lead nurturing is the process of building relationships with your prospects with the goal of earning their business when they're ready.”
After you’ve planted the seeds of sales prospecting and strategic outreach, you need to water and nurture your relationship with high-priority leads.
This stage is all about building trust and adding more bait to your deal to reel prospects in.
💡 Here are some ways to provide value to nurture your leads:
- Share useful content: Blog posts, case studies, white papers, data reports, guides, etc.
- Understand the customer 360 degrees: Their trajectory, history, vision, competitive landscape, etc.
- Follow up and follow through: Stay in touch, track their behavior, and initiate action at every touch point.
A good rule to remember for lead nurturing is the 95/5 rule.
The 95/5 rule is the idea that 95% of your potential customers aren’t interested in buying right now, and the remaining 5% are actively in the market for your service.
Unless you’re a skilled sales expert, it’s likely you won’t find B2B customers who want to buy your product immediately.
Here’s a tip on lead nurturing from Chris Ritson, Co-founder of the SDR Leader and entrepreneur,
“Once you’ve started a 2 way conversation don’t ’just add value’ that’s incredibly subjective.
Instead, build a 1:1 communication cadence for the prospect including content on what they professionally and personally care about.”
Be a helpful resource that consistently shows up and helps solve problems for your customers.
5. Proposing an offer
Sales funnel stage: Evaluation
This stage of the B2B sales process is a sign you’re almost to the finish line.
A winning B2B sales proposal is quick, relevant, flexible–and most of all, exciting.
Here are a few tips you should know about B2B sales proposals:
- Send your offer in a timely manner: If you wait too long, the prospect might change their mind.
- Tailor the proposal according to the prospect’s unique needs, challenges, and budget.
- Be flexible with your offer: Propose at least three different tailored offers to avoid too much back-and-forth negotiation.
6. Negotiation and handling sales objections
Sales funnel stage: Evaluation
This stage of the B2B sales process is about turning a “maybe” or a “no” into an “Absolutely yes!”
After you’ve sent over your sales proposal, you might run into a sales objection or two.
No biggie, sales objections are easy to navigate once you’re familiar with common ones and mapped out how to respond to each.
Whether you run into the objection of “This doesn’t fit our budget”, or “Your competitor is offering better”, use these points to tailor your B2B sales proposal even more–to an extent.
Handling sales objections and tweaking your offer is all about negotiation.
📕 Related: 22 Common Sales Objections and How to Overcome Them
Open the floor to your prospects for negotiation, but hold your ground for things that cannot be changed.
7. Closing the sale
Sales funnel stage: Purchase
Congratulations, you made it to the last stage of the long, grueling process of the B2B sales process: closing the deal.
Here’s how to go from “Maybe” to a firm handshake and a signed deal:
- Prepare all the documents needed for the deal.
- Automate the legal approval review process and signature requests.
- Give prospects an incentive to close now with a limited time offer.
8. Securing B2B customer renewals
Sales funnel stage: Retention and loyalty
After you’ve closed the deal, the next stage in the B2B sales process that tests your skills as a sales professional is securing customer renewals.
In B2B sales, you’re not just looking for one-and-done customers. You’re looking for customers who will renew 2x, 5x, or become customers for life.
Reaching the “R” stage of the B2B sales process (the renewal stage) requires two things:
Consistent communication and always delivering on your promises.
Keep a close relationship with your existing customers and schedule regular time to keep in contact with them.
Learn what’s going well for them, what’s not, and how you can fix their issues.
📘 Related: Learn how to secure B2B SaaS subscription renewals using “The S.P.L.A.I.T.E. Framework for Customer Success Renewals”.
🎙️ Listen to this podcast episode “Get Past Renewal Rejections” to learn how Christopher Fago, Inside Sales Manager at Palo Alto Networks, closed about $100,000 sales in renewals month-to-month.
B2B sales strategies and techniques (tips from sales experts)
While there are many different types of B2B sales, the SaaS industry is one of the most challenging.
Here's how Jake Butler (Head of GTM at FairComp) describes the B2B SaaS sales industry:
"Sales is like dating. You have to shoot your shot with a lot of people to find someone who won’t reject you. The best salespeople are the ones who aren’t afraid to take a shot and get rejected."
The good news is, you can elevate your B2B sales game by connecting with people who already have the wisdom and experience.
Explore these key insider tips on B2B sales to help you navigate common challenges in the industry–sourced directly from sales experts.
1. Be the easiest person to work with.
Working in the B2B industry is hard enough.
Find ways to alleviate pain points for your prospects, not only through a product you sell, but the entire experience of interacting with prospects from the first point of contact.
“The hard part of B2B selling is you do not have control over the client's end team. So, you need to be easy to work with- quick response, helpful information, and conversations, get what you need done as quickly as possible, and share new developments or deals in time. In short, be in their world endlessly offering value.”
- Lev Tretyakov, CEO of Fortador and serial entrepreneur
2. Don’t sell a product, sell an experience.
Build a narrative.
Talking about your product’s features isn’t very compelling or unique.
Instead, talk about a prospect’s unique challenges and describe the exact value, relief, and success they can achieve with your product.
Tell a compelling story and sell a feeling or an experience that your prospect desires that also ties in to the success of their organization overall.
Lev Tretyakov also suggests doing your research to understand your leads before reaching out to them:
“Understanding [leads’] needs better can help you personalize your cold email intro lines for a higher email open rate and, consequently, higher conversions. We did this and got a +7% in our email open rates over the past three months.”
3. Always leverage data analytics.
You can use data analytics to help you make decisions at almost every stage of the B2B sales process.
Bonnie Ruan, the Chief Product Officer of Beska Mold, says:
“We've invested heavily in data analytics to understand market trends, customer behavior, and sales performance. This has allowed us to identify high-potential leads and tailor our sales pitches more effectively. As a result, we've seen a 25% increase in lead conversion rates over the past year.
It’s clear from Bonnie’s example that accurate data analytics can help B2B sales teams uncover:
- Insights about their customers’ unique needs
- Better-fit leads who are more likely to convert
- Key persuasion points for more effective sales pitches
We could list a million other reasons why data is the backbone of B2B sales, but here's one that sales representatives and account executives should know: Historical data helps you create realistic goals.
Start tracking your data analytics to supercharge your B2B sales strategy.
Here's how you can put this sales tip to practice according to Jake Butler of FairComp:
"Establish input KPIs based on historical data. For example, if we make 10,000 cold calls that lead to 1,000 meetings and close 300 deals from those 1000 meetings, we can create KPIs that lead to consistent performance.
If our goal is closing 30 deals per month, then we need 100 meetings, and 1,000 calls per month. This standard enables scaled consistency across the organization."
Build out new sales goals based on your past progress. Doing this helps you create a realistic and achievable B2B sales KPIs.
4. There’s no “one-size-fits-all” in B2B sales.
When you’re trying to scale your B2B sales strategy, your strategy and approach needs to bend and evolve as your prospects change.
Here’s a good example: In the military, you need to constantly shift and iterate your plan of attack.
Once you’ve used the same plan of attack against a target repeatedly, they might start to realize how to counter your moves and shift their approach to keep blocking you.
Similarly in B2B tech sales, your prospects might recognize your sales approach or tactics and come up with new objections.
You need to be flexible and quick to pivot your sales approach or strategy based on these new objections–expected or unexpected.
Our suggestion is to keep track of all your data. Figure out what’s working, what’s not working, and opportunities to change.
🎙️ Listen to this podcast clip to learn what the CEO of Seamless.AI, Brandon Bornancin, recommends to start changing your B2B sales approach to see real improvements.
5. Always ask for referrals.
Your existing customers are your bread and butter for business revenue.
Aside from customer renewals, your existing customers can also help you find other high-quality prospects and help you build trust with new leads.
One company that does a great job of securing customer referrals is Salesforce.
Salesforces has a Salesforce Referral Program that incentivizes their existing customers with gift cards, discounts on future purchases, or even charitable donations to refer new leads.
As a result, Salesforce reported a 10% increase in annual revenue due to its referral program, with a significant boost in customer acquisition.
There are many other examples of B2B referral programs, including Hubspot, Amazon Web Services, Zendesk and more.
The bottom line is: incentivize your loyal customers to convert new customers for you.
6. Leverage social listening.
The fastest way to start keeping a pulse on the type of content and topics that your prospects are most interested in is through social media.
In B2B sales, social media is a friendly and easy way to keep up with your prospects and showcase your value beyond direct hard selling tactics.
💼 Case in point: Julien Salinas, Founder and CTO of NLP Cloud (an OpenAI alternative), leverages social listening tools to monitor competitors, hot topic keywords, and gather new B2B leads on social media platforms.
“We realized that many key NLP Cloud customers initially heard about us on social media, especially on Linkedin and on AI technical discussion on Reddit. So we decided to double down on this by leveraging a social listening tool that monitors social media for us and sends us alerts when specific keywords are mentioned on Linkedin, Reddit, and X.
We monitor our competitors and chime in when a discussion mentions these competitors. We also monitor our brand and many business related topics like "chatbots", "ai summarization", etc.”
This social listening strategy works well on B2B sales customers who aren’t inclined to respond to sales outreach messages out of the blue–like cold calls or emails.
📙 Related: Mastering Social Media as a Powerful Sales Channel
B2B sales software
According to Jason Woo, Founder of Able Hardware, we can expect the future of B2B sales to look like:
“A symbiotic relationship between advanced technology and a traditional personal approach. While automation will further refine efficiency and data harnessing, a direct relationship-centered model will determine the success of a deal.”
Technology won’t singlehandedly replace traditional sales tactics, but you can expect to see more innovative ways technology supports hyper-personalization of B2B sales.
There are various different types of B2B sales software out there, but here are a few important types that sales teams should consider:
- Sales prospecting software
- B2B contact databases
- Lead generation tools
- CRMs
- Sales calendar scheduling tools
- AI sales outreach message writers
The list goes on, but the important thing to know is that there’s just about any tool to help sales teams at every stage of the sales process.
📗 If you’re in the market for new B2B sales software, we recommend browsing through these tool lists and resources to help you understand what’s out there:
- 7 Best Sales Prospecting Software
- Lusha vs Seamless.AI: A Comparison of Top Sales Lead Intelligence Tools
- Seamless.AI vs ZoomInfo
- The ultimate guide to B2B data enrichment tools
- 10 Best Sales Intelligence Software and Tools
- How to Use AI to Find Emails that Generate Revenue
B2B sales jobs
Just getting started in B2B sales? Not all jobs in B2B sales do cold calling or prospecting. There are many different B2B sales roles you can take on within an organization.
Here's a quick rundown on a few sales roles that are common in business-to-business companies.
B2B sales representative
B2B sales development representatives (SDRs) are usually the ones who do outbound prospecting, lead qualification, contact researching, and more.
This role is usually entry-level. SDRs handle most of the prospecting in the B2B sales process because it’s a great way to get to know your customers.
Additionally, being successful in prospecting helps SDRs build the skills needed to close deals later down the line.
📕 Related: Breaking Down the Sales Development Representative (SDR) Role
Account executive
Becoming an AE is a common next step after the SDR role.
After a few years working with top of funnel leads, you can start negotiating contracts, closing deals, and driving sales and revenue as an account executive.
Customer success
If your forte isn’t the business side of things, like negotiating contracts or closing B2B sales deals, you can go the customer success route.
Customer success managers are responsible for teaching a customer everything they need to get the most value out of your product or service.
It’s a bit similar to customer education, but more tailored for individual customer types and their unique challenges. Customer success teams focus more on building a hands-on relationship with customers to help them get started and keep in touch to boost customer renewals.
📕 Related: Read the Ultimate Guide to Landing a Tech Sales Job to learn all about tech sales careers, plus a list of 50+ tech sales job hiring now (updated Q1 2024).
B2B sales FAQ
Still have lingering questions about B2B sales? Find the answers to the most frequently asked questions about B2B sales below.
How to increase B2B sales?
The best way to increase B2B sales is to approach your sales strategy through a human lens.
Here are a few summarized tips from sales experts:
- Don’t just sell a product, sell an experience.
- Always ask for referrals.
- Always deliver value through content (one-pagers, blog posts, data reports, ebooks, whitepapers, etc.)
- Be an active listener during all sales conversations.
What is an example of B2B sales?
Here’s a quick example: The sales team at Seamless.AI sells a core product of an AI-powered sales intelligence tool to other sales teams at businesses in various industries to help them find sales prospects in real-time.
Is B2B sales tough?
B2B sales is difficult, but it’s a rewarding challenge.
According to Ryan Feely, the top AE at Seamless.AI,
“Consistent activity is the biggest secret that’s slept on. Hard work does beat talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
There are many challenges in B2B sales, but you can overcome them with daily consistency and being biased towards action to reach your goals.
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