Defining B2B Sales

Please note – Over the past year I have been honored to be a monthly contributor at Windmill Networking. This begins a series of article excerpts that were originally published at that site. Please be sure to follow the link at the end of the excerpt to read the rest of the article over at Windmill and, while you are there, please take a look around and connect with the other great authors that you can find there!

Last month we established the focus of this column as being Social Media for B2B Sales. Perhaps, before we go further, it might be best to define B2B. Simply put, B2B is “business to business” and, as much as anything; it defines a company or an individual’s target market. In other words, I am a business and I sell to businesses. Therefore, a company that is B2C (business to consumer) is a business that targets consumers. For example, retail. My efforts have been solely B2B sales for the last 34 years but, prior to that, I spent approximately 7 years in retail and my degree is actually in Retail Merchandise Management. Therefore, I am not completely foreign to this market. I would say, and these are certainly not hard and fast rules, that B2B differs from B2C in the following areas:

B2B companies tend to have a smaller marketplace than those found with B2C if for no other reason than there are a heck of a lot more consumers than there are businesses. As far as that goes, they are more likely to be narrowly defined in terms of the types of products or services that they offer.
B2B sales people are often called upon to travel to their customer’s place of business or, at the very least, their efforts are generally outbound. They are also required to typically prospect heavily whereas B2C sales people will more often rely on their marketing and advertising departments to bring the folks to them. While commission programs are found in both arenas, B2B pay models are known to lean more heavily toward commission based compensation.
B2B products and services are generally higher ticket items and can be more complex than B2C. A high level of product knowledge is a must. Once again, this is not a rule without exceptions. Certainly, new cars and homes command substantial price tags and can be complex purchases. B2B products and services are also more likely to have largely stable pricing structures. No “Black Friday” deals here. Read on at Maximize Social Business

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Craig M. Jamieson

Managing Member at Adaptive Business Services

Craig M. Jamieson is a lifelong B2B salesperson, manager, owner, and a networking enthusiast. Adaptive Business Services provides solutions related to the sales professional. We are a Nimble CRM Solution Partner. Craig also conducts training and workshops primarily in social selling and communication skills. Craig is also the author of "The Small Business' Guide to Social CRM", now available on Amazon!