The 3 phases of the

B2B sales funnel

The 3 phases of the B2B sales funnel

Building a B2B sales funnel starts with having a clear understanding of its 3 main phases and their applicability. Here I offer a summary of the model I use in my coaching program.

Dear Fellow Innovator,

The sales of industrial products or services has its own peculiarities that shall be taken into account when building a sales funnel.

A full marketing model is applicable only if the solution can address an horizontal market need. Serving a vertical market need is often too close to a simple outsourcing model, with a single Client and a pure Account Management relationship.

In case your business model addresses a vertical need, most probably you can apply marketing only partially.

· You can use the strategic tools of marketing to support your Product go to market e.g. to decide R&D investments.

· You can use the tactical tools of marketing to support your aftermarket lead generation. In aftermarket you already have a Customer Base, you just need to maximize the value (unless you are targeting also the competitors Customer Base… but in this case you fall into and “horizontal needs” kind of business model…)

If your business model addresses an “horizontal need”, then you may find useful this approach, that aims at creating a sales funnel in 3 steps:

1) Build the Relationship with the Clients

2) Build the Client Trust

3) Build the Client’s Value

The Goal is two-fold:

· Create a Customer Base

· Generate Leads and funnel them to the Sales Team.

Before to start, you should have done your homework:

1. You should have a validated business model

As a minimum you should have clear the pains and the gains of your potenttal Customer, and what kind of answer you offer to them.

2. Numbers should be on your side.

The number of Clients, and the number of business opportunities should have satisfied your profitability model AND your marketing budget.

3. You do have a clear competitive strategy:

· you have defined the slash of the market you are going to target,

· you do have a plan to displace competition from Client’s brain, and

· you do have fully understood the consequences of your decided market entry mode.

 

The Lead Generation Funnel

As you can see from the figure on top of this page, there are 3 phases into the “Get” side of the lead generation and sales process:

1) Relationship building

2) Trust building

3) Value building

In this 3 phases Sales and Marketing work overlapping and partnering, but building a Relationship and Building Trust is the role of Marketing.

Pamper the Client and make her feel special, maximizing the value for both parties, is the role of Sales.

The “Rational” behind the B2B Lead Generation funnel

As I have said in another post, B2B marketing is a different stuff compared to Consumer Marketing.

· B2B decision have a life-long impact - the decision maker will live with the consequences of her decision for a long time.

· B2B decision makers are very competent people - often they know about your stuff more than you do.

· A B2B buyer makes “purchasing” for a living - a buyer is someone whose job is to minimize purchasing risks, and no one buys a Space Rocket from strangers.

So in B2B nobody impulse-buys just because of your advertising.

As Americans say, “business follows relationship”…

Yes! but  how do you build “relationship”?

Well, I dug a bit, and so far the best answer I got is this:

“Business follows Relationship … and Relationship follows Surprise”

If you follow me in the next lines, I will try to explain what I mean with “Surprise”

STEP 1: Building Relationship

I would like to start this section with a tale:

The New Boy in Town

If, like me, you have been moved a few dozens of times, changing city, or even State, you have for sure experienced the “daylight dream” effect of showing up the first time in the public square, corner, pub of your new new community.

You are there, dozen of person are busy talking on the other side and it seems you are watching through a windows.  You should be able to talk with many persons  but  nobody seems to notice you.

What is missed? The hundreds of previous contacts that these people had among them and you do not have done. Or better...you have done, but in your previous city.

What you can do to “move” the situation? Well you can join a local association, throw a party, buy a sporty car and park in front of the pub… and many other things… It takes time but generally you work it out.

After a while you can even propose a deal to your new friends and make business.

But what is the rational of so doing? What is that makes the people slowly start to interact with you?

Let’s end the tale now. And move on the “Relationship” step of the Lead Generation funnel. What the tale shows is that:

1) you cannot “go and sell”. Relationship comes first. Through a PEER

You shall sell you “personal brand” before to propose any deal. In this phase you do not sell product or services. Nobody comes to a perfect stranger and offers a deal hoping to get result on the spot.

You have to attract the attention. And Attention is given to “differences”.

E.g. You notice more easily a waving hand in a crowd.

What makes you relationship start, is if in this phase you are able to establish yourself as someone that has brought a difference:

a “Surprise” to the attention of the Client.

2) Relationship is made into Customer’s Brain. Through a SURPRISE

Ok, if this sounds like the “Positioning theory” - you can bet it is, because Relationship happens in the prospect’s mind, first. How?

First: You must be noted – acknowledged.

Don’t sell. I warned you. Don’t sell.

Don’t act like shouting your “apple!” at the market.

You must pass through a “peer”. Someone that has (already) the credibility to bring you on the board, under the spotlight.

Second: You must be remembered

You must emerge from the white noise, bring a “surprise” - the “Un-expected”

What is a surprise for a “Business”? It’s a difference in the status quo.

Any Business is always interested to understand if it’s lagging behind the pack, if the usual performance has been jeopardized.

In this phase the Decision Maker is not interested in you because you bring a product or a solution, but because you make notice a change in the status quo, that is per se a problem. A problem about which you sound like to be an expert.

What happens in your prospect brain is: a neural blizzard forges a synapsis connection between: “You” and “the problem”. Not a bad start if you then add another connection between “You” and “Solution”.

What is a PEER?

To reach your prospects you have to pass through a Peer, if you want to scale up fast your market entry.

A Peer is the channel, the medium through which you deliver yourself. It should be a Peer of your Prospect, not your Peer. Someone who is somehow already accredited by your prospect. It’s should be “disinterested” and even better: willing to actively introduce you.

Furthermore it should be “industry focused”. Your Clients do not want to waste  their time with people that are not tuned, alerted , activated to their business.

The right Peer depends on the industry, but we can set at least a couple of categories:

· Direct Peers:

All those that introduce you in person, like associations, public speaking occasions, expos, conferences, meet-ups, market places, sport competitions, and sometimes even Charities and no-profit, pioneers, mentors and even Competitors.

Not only they can introduce you, but each networking event is an occasion to gather keywords and messages for your “communication” fine tuning.

· Indirect Peers:

they are the one that introduce you but not in person: like newspapers,  magazines, rankings, and leaving a trace on peers blogs, groups and social networks.

In general any event that mixes Prospect’s Peers and “your” topic, has the advantage to abate barriers and focus the argument.

What is a SURPRISE?

A surprise is an information that highlights a difference in the status quo.

The rational is that any Prospect want to know how they stand compared to their industry peers: if they are lagging behind the pack, if they are going to be in a Status quo that will differ from the present one for any reason.

A Surprise is an “un-expected comparison”

· Un-expected:

Something that challenges the status quo.

· Comparison:

Something that forces the recipient of the message to compare the ex-ante and the ex-post situations. (and not: “compare about solutions”. Solutions don’t matter in this moment)

What triggers the comparison is not a comparison among solutions but among situations. It shall challenge the status quo. It could show trials, traumas and triumphs associated to moving between the two situations.

A Surprise is not a comparison about differences in performances, outcomes or benefits. It’s about the differences of the two Status.

A Surprise ( un-expected Comparison) is that ahah! moment that associates You to a Customer’s problem.

It’s the moment when you create the Relationship in the Customer Brain.

I have always in mind the reaction of my 2 years old kid when he saw for the first time a balloon going up, instead than falling on the floor when I released it.

Now “balloons” are forever associated with “new” unexpected and fantastic surprise. The fact that I have introduced him to the fantastic world of “balloons”, it’s probably a bonus that I will leverage for some time.

This examples teaches also a further observations:

If the Surprise comes from an “industry expert, it’s even better.  People value specialists the most, even if what you say has an horizontal applicability.

If you belong to the industry, you eat like the industry, you breath like the industry, then you can describe the “status quo” with the right key words, the ones that resonate with your Customer’s brain. 

What is surprising your prospect?

There are at least 4 kinds of surprise that make your prospect feel a change in the status quo:

· Un-forecasted issues/problems

· Un-anticipated market drivers’ changes

· Un-derestimated results

· Un-presidiated factors

 

Un-forecasted issues/problems

Any kind of issue or problem your prospect’s peers have suffered, are suffering or going to suffer and that most probably your prospect will have to deal with soon.

 

Un-anticipated market drivers’ changes

· Here you can refer to classic Porter’s 5 Forces

Change in the Customers base, new suppliers, new competitors, substitute products, and new moves of actual competition.

 

· and 5 Environments:

Change in the Environment/Ecosystem, new Norms and Regulations, Shift in populations trends, impacts of fashions and moods, impacts of new technological trends and innovation.

 

Un-derestimated results

Some big surprise comes from comparing the final results with the expected ones.

· Within a company,

e.g. the “steady state” status quo can be harmed by slow deterioration, fatigue and catastrophic failures of components.

· From an outside view

 a company can startle at the news of improved Peers results or the change of expectations by their stakeholders.

In general any discordance among imagined / planned / desired results and actual facts capture prospects attention.

 

Un-presidiated factors

A further source of surprise comes again from failing of considering a company as an evolutionary system, instead of a steady system.

A system may fail not because of a part crash, but because the supporting functions are given for granted:

· External Resources may be no more available

· Supporting systems may be no more available

· Intoxicating factors can overcome safe limits

· Internal reserves and stocks may suffer ruptures

 

A Surprise signals to your Prospect that “the World has changed”  (1)

 

A Surprise says to your Customer:

· “You made the right decision at the time, but the world has changed.”

· “Yes, this was the leading technology last year, but the world has changed.”

· “Now that your competitor is doing X, the world has changed.”

· “This new shift in consumer behavior means that the world has changed.”

· “The current cost of X means that the world has changed.”

 

If you can play out with the consequences of inaction via a SWOT analysis, you may end inviting your prospect to re-think the alternatives, and fight the costs of inaction, and her resistances to Loss, making do-nothing : not an option.

 

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This post has summarized what elements are needed to build a Relationship with the Customer.

 

The next Post will focus on what is needed to build Trust.

 

Your comments and observations are much appreciated,

Please use the following form to leave them:

 

(1) Note: I “borrowed” the concept of “the world has changed” on line, but using it for marketing purpose instead of sales, as in the original post.

 

 

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