7 Steps To The Best B2B Sales Process
B2B sales can feel like a maze. You’re juggling stakeholders, shifting timelines, and unpredictable buyers. Does this sound like your B2B sales process?
- Outreach that gets ignored despite personalization.
- Chasing unqualified leads that were never a fit.
- Inconsistent sales messaging between reps.
- Deals stuck in limbo as buyers "think it over."
With a clear B2B sales process, you can prioritize high-intent leads, align your team, and close deals faster. No more guessing games—just a clear path forward. This guide will walk you through a 7-step process to refine your B2B sales strategy to better align with how your customers buy today. Let's get into it.
How Has B2B Sales Changed?
While in the past, B2B sales were a little simpler — you could cold call a prospect and give your sales pitch pretty easily. This would then escalate to identifying the decision-maker, talking about their needs, and eventually, shaking hands on a deal. Essentially, marketing would bring new leads in for vendors, and sales would reach out directly to close a deal.
Today, things are a little more complicated. The buying journey isn’t as linear, and most industries have experienced the transformation in the B2B sales process that has come with the internet. Marketing and sales are now increasingly linked, playing a synchronized role in lead generation. The customer experience now may look more like this:
- Someone finds a problem within their organization
- They research potential solutions
- They optimize and rank those solutions
- They reach out to their network to get recommendations
- They check review sites, social media, and forums for guidance
- They sign up for a trial or contact a vendor
After talking to a vendor and following up with their salespeople several times, they might finally make a decision. And the thing is, this process isn’t exactly linear. A buyer may complete these tasks in any order, and even after talking to a vendor, they may go right back to the beginning to start again.
Why Having A B2B Sales Process Is Important
Your sales process is important because it needs to evolve with the ways people want to buy. As the B2B landscape changes, your buying process must do the same, helping buyers explore, engage, evaluate, and experience your product at their own convenience. They want an omnichannel experience that provides parallel streams of information at the same time.
Today, over 70% of B2B companies sell through seven or more channels, including by phone, over email, in-person, and through a website. It’s essential that you add hybrid sellers to your lead management to accommodate the needs of the buyer and personalize each buying experience. As the variety in buyer behavior grows, multiple touchpoints and contact methods add resilience to your sales funnel.
Outlining The Sales Process
So you know what and why a sales process is essential for your organization, but how do you actually outline one that works for your sales team?
You’ll need to map the steps a customer takes during every stage of their buying journey — from becoming a prospect to the completion of the transaction. You’ll also need to include every stakeholder in the process for consistent messaging across every team to ensure everyone is working toward the same goals.
To get you started, take a look at this basic outline of the seven stages of every sales process. Decide what tasks your sales reps need to complete at every stage and assign the appropriate teams to each task.
1. Creating a Buyer Persona
Before you even get to lead generation and prospecting, you need to research your potential customers to understand their business needs. What are their pain points? How can you add value to their organization?
You can complete your research online with LinkedIn or social media, or you can use prospecting software to automate some of the more repetitive manual tasks. You may also want to send out surveys or add a contact form to your website to encourage prospects to reach out and help you build an ideal customer profile, including demographics, objectives, and pain points.
2. Prospecting & Qualifying
During this stage of the sales cycle, you should focus on potential buyers in your target audience that you can nurture and convert. While prospecting can be difficult, it can help you reach out to the right people at the right time and close more deals.
You can also use your time prospecting to qualify your leads before outreach. Do they have the budget to afford your product? Have there been relevant changes to their business lately? Do their pain points align with your offerings? You save so much time by qualifying leads instead of reaching out to everyone, only later finding out they don’t actually need your services.
3. Connecting With Leads
Outbound messaging with cold leads can be tough, but all that research will help you personalize your calls and emails to create a deeper connection with every prospect. Consider their needs in your sales strategy and craft a message that shows you understand their organization a little more in-depth than the average cold call.
4. Researching & Market Analysis
While prospecting and qualifying were the initial research stages, now is the time to take an even deeper dive into your prospect. Get more familiar with the specific challenges they face and learn more about their industry, users, and competitors. With all this information on hand, your sales professionals will be much more prepared to clarify your value proposition and respond to push-back.
5. Making Your Sales Pitch
Sales pitches and product demos are an important part of the B2B sales cycle. They allow your sales managers to demonstrate their know-how, answer questions about the product in real time, and strengthen the customer relationship. Make sales demos once a B2B buyer has officially become a lead, personalizing the delivery and presentation.
6. Closing the Deal
There are several ways sales representatives can close with prospects depending on their needs. Whether it’s in-person or through contract management software, make sure the result is mutually beneficial.
7. Nurturing Your Client
But you’re not done yet! Once a lead becomes a client, you must continue communication and support to open opportunities for contract renewal, upselling, and cross-selling. Reinforce the value you bring to your customers and gain positive reviews for future referrals.
Moving Forward
Now that you have a more concrete B2B sales strategy, it’s time to talk about the sales tools that can help. I recommend looking into B2B software that’s designed specifically for your needs, instead of B2C sales. You’ll quickly see that these digital assistants can streamline your operations and assist with the decision-making process.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Ready for more tips for B2B salespeople? There’s a lot more advice for improving sales performance here! Sign up for the RevOps newsletter for insights into forecasting, marketing team needs, and enterprise management.
