MarketStar Blog

When it comes to selling B2B technology, landing an enterprise deal is like grabbing the brass ring. Enterprise sales generate more revenue with larger and higher-value contracts. Enterprise sales also lead to longer engagements, which means ongoing revenue and more opportunity to cross-sell and upsell.

Selling complex technology requires special skills and technical expertise, but knowing how to sell the technology doesn’t mean you have to know how to build it. However, when you engage in consultative selling, the prospect is looking for sophisticated, custom solutions to complex problems. That’s why selling technical solutions requires sales engineers (SEs).

If you are in sales (or a movie buff), you have undoubtedly heard the phrase “ABC, always be closing,” from Glengarry Glen Ross. That may be a good motivational mantra for selling real estate, but it’s less effective in B2B sales. When dealing with lead qualification for B2B technology, selling it makes more sense to think of ABC as “always be consulting.”

Key Insights

A PwC research indicates that many outsourcing deals collapse even before the contract has concluded because of mistrust between service providers and customers.

In today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, you can’t continue to grow your business if you decide to go it alone. Your sales force is a force to reckon with. But channel partners can amplify your business potential when they work in tandem with your sales team members.

You have just landed a new customer for your product - congratulations! The first step toward product adoption is now behind you, but there’s a lot more to come. How you onboard your new user, especially during the early stages of the adoption process, will have a huge impact on how long they are going to stay with you, how enthusiastic they are about new features in the future and how often they refer your tool to other people.

Responding to a popular survey, liking an inspiring post or availing an irresistible offer– these are just a few of the ways customers express their thoughts after their interaction with a product. Forums, social media, groups, blog comments and events are the most common channels where customers usually voice their opinions and air their grievances. But the biggest challenge for a business is to decipher meaningful insights from these common actions. Known as the Voice of Customer (VoC) in customer service parlance, these expressions can mean a lot to a business that is looking to offer products that are acceptable and commercially viable.

The roles of customer success and marketing are different, and yet interdependent. The former interacts with customers to help them derive maximum value from the products they buy.

Most sales reps congratulate themselves on a job well done when customers sign on the dotted line, but in reality, that is only the beginning. Customers buy a product with a purpose, and companies need to ensure that the purpose for which they bought the product is well served. But this is not always so. Technology companies often have a way of making customer onboarding complicated and daunting. They put their customers through complex product tutorials, long-form pdf guides, endless how-to videos, and tedious sign-up processes as a way of welcoming them on board. Consider these alarming stats: