7 tips for SMB sales: the smart way to sell to small businesses

14 December 2020

Smaller business does not mean smaller opportunity. SMB sales are important because they are typically loyal customers that offer huge market potential.

By Kompass International

14 December 2020

SMB sales are the sales of products or services sold to an SMB business. With 30.2 million SMB companies in the United States alone, many opportunities are waiting for you to make your move.

What’s more, SMB’s sales cycles are shorter, and since these firms are more agile and have less bureaucracy, it costs less for salespeople to close deals with them. Read on to learn seven tips for SMB sales.

Tips for selling to SMBs

Your entire approach must be tailored and intentional when you plan to sell to small and medium-sized businesses. Everything from your process, training, product, support as well as pricing must be in line.

Understanding why and how these businesses buy helps your salespeople adopt a perspective to win with this market. Experienced hands in this area offer a few tips on how to find success:

1. Engage early

Many SMB business decision-makers say that salespeople are often unprepared. That’s because they don’t take time to build a relationship with a potential client at the start of the process. Building rapport helps to establish trust long before you think about pitching them.

When you make yourself visible from the beginning of the decision process and stay in touch—providing valuable advice and input throughout—you’ll find you’ll be first on their mind when it comes time to buy.

Let your prospect see your relationship as a partnership. You can begin to achieve this by being authentic and genuine. When the deal is less about a sale for you and more about helping your prospect, you’ll know you’re doing it right.

2. Put high-quality leads first

When you have a reliable system like EasyBusiness from Kompass to sort leads into priority categories, you’ll find it easy to put high quality leads first. Focus on potential customers likely to make a purchase, although you want to have relationships with all leads in the decision process.

Filtering leads using the 60 advanced search filters and deep classification will have your list of prospects filled with up-to-date company information, profiles, financials, and contact details.

Aside from qualifying prospects using a scoring system, look at the source of the prospective client. Candidates that come from a referral have a higher probability of making a purchase.

3. Understand their mindset

Take the time to get to know your prospect and understand their perspective if you are new to selling to SMB customers. When you have clarity on their desires, needs, and challenges, building a rapport becomes straightforward. Get to know their pain points, find out how you can add real value, and you will have a better chance of closing a sale with them.

Many SMB companies are concerned about finances as compared to larger enterprise businesses. Flexible payment options and how your product or service helps generate revenue would be of interest to this customer type.

4. Get more specific for SMB sales

Scoring leads and prioritizing prospects are essential since your product or service isn’t going to be right for everyone. Selling to one specific persona is more efficient, and success rates tend to be higher.

EasyBusiness by Kompass helps you refine your process. They understand the challenges you face to analyze, target, engage, and close. They are making the way to do it more straightforward with EasyBusiness.

This program makes the process of identifying your best prospects much more direct since your focus smaller. For example, you will target your target prospect’s demographic instead of the industry your prospective client serves. When the details are precise, you’ll need fewer resources for prospecting and closing sales.

5. Keep it simple

It’s easy to get caught up in a myriad of details when you’re new to a market. Prospective SMB sales clients don’t want an in-depth sales pitch with all the bells and whistles. They want to know how it will help them.

To impress your prospect, you don’t need a complicated pitch. A straightforward, personalized pitch is all you need. If you can present it in a small, easy-to-digest method with a basic demo and quote, your prospect will be over the moon. Save being a show-off for another time.

6. Be results-focused

Products or services that don’t provide real, concrete results in a short period don’t find a place in your SMB sales prospect’s budget. They can’t invest in anything that doesn’t add to their success quickly.

Rather than the product itself, you’ll need to prove its value to them. Showing them how it adds to their margins and helps them grow measurably is the way to go.

What are the short and long-term benefits of being your customer? While the immediate advantage may make them buy, the long-term ones position it as an investment and will make them stay with you.

7. Minimize the risks

When your prospect is a smaller business, they are often averse to taking risks. It makes sense when they have a smaller amount of resources than more substantial companies. Imagine that only a few poor business decisions will break the camel’s back.

It’s easy to understand why short trial periods and flexible payment plans are more their speed. Share case studies and testimonials about your products and services that speak to the success it brought to other small businesses. It’s an excellent way to build trust with your prospect.

Doing everything you can to keep their fears at bay and reduce any stress related to them becoming customers will help. Here are a few suggestions:

  • Provide a free trial
  • Provide monthly payment options instead of a yearly contract
  • Give a money-back guarantee.
  • Fill your website with many testimonials and case studies as social proof for your products and services.

Providing a solution that offers comfort and value to your SMB prospect can make a huge difference.

SMB sales aren’t difficult

With the above tips as a reference for SMB sales, you’ll be starting great relationships with your targeted prospects that will lead to closing more deals. Leveraging a product like EasyBusiness will save your team precious time in finding and qualifying leads.

Boosting your business with Kompass Sales and Marketing solutions can help. Need to know more? Make a move to get in touch with us today to experience what we can do.

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