B2C Sales Tactics Can Work Great in B2B Sales Situations

Timing, emotion and personality still play a big role in B2B selling situations, yet too many salespeople leave them out.

The reason they leave them out is they feel the customer is all business and they’re dealing with them either via email or some sort of a bidding process.  It doesn’t matter. Time, emotion and personality still play a big role. 

Timing is not just matching up your offering to the decision-making timeline the customer has. It’s more than that.  Timing is about using the hours in the day and the days in the week to your advantage.

Do you know when is the best time to email or call your customer?  What day of the week?

As I work with B2B salespeople and ask them these questions, it’s amazing how few really know the best time to contact a person.

One of the easiest ways to leverage timing is by lining up what it is you’re sending to a customer with the time frame you’re going to talk to them.  The closer you can have both of these, the better off you are.

The worst case scenario is you send the customer something you’d like them to look at a couple days ahead of your meeting, only to have them read what you sent, draw their own conclusions and cancel the meeting.  This worst case scenario, though, rarely happens.  Instead, the materials you send in advance support what you want to discuss.

Emotion and personality do have a huge place in B2B sales for one key reason.  People still buy from people first.

You might have the best product at the best price, but if the customer can’t stand you, don’t think for a second the business is yours.   Allow your personality to come through. Be engaging, be comfortable, and most of all, be you.

This is especially critical the further up in an organization you go.  The higher the person is in an organization, the more important trust becomes.  One of the biggest ways trust is built between two people is by allowing their respective personalities to come through.

Use your personality as a way to engage the customer and as a way to create comfort with the customer.  The more comfortable the customer is with you, the more information they in turn will share with you.

If you want to be successful in the B2B arena, don’t doubt for a minute the importance of time, emotion and personality.

Copyright 2012, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.