How to Start Meaningful B2B Sales Conversations With Your Customers

The art of communication is so important in business, and establishing meaningful B2B sales conversations with customers is key. Many businesses are discovering the flexibility of digital sales tools to establish an immediate understanding of your customers needs.

Have you ever had a sales conversation that’s gone like a dream? Maybe you’ve hit it off from the get-go, found out you share the same sense of humour, the buyer just clicks with everything you say and suddenly you find yourself signing off on a very valuable deal.

Unfortunately, it’s not always like that (but wouldn’t that be great?). With precious little time in the boardroom to make that all-important last impression, sales conversations can be tricky at the best of times.

There’s always the risk of talking too much, giving buyer’s the impression you don’t understand their industry, needs or challenges – or you could go the other way, and put too much emphasis on questioning the buyer, making them feel too ‘on the spot’.

Here at POP, we specialise in developing interactive sales experiences which can give you the edge over your competition – but more importantly, establish meaningful conversations that are mutually beneficial for both you and the buyer.

With that in mind, here are three of the best ways to start meaningful B2B sales conversations with customers.

1. Provide helpful content for each stage of their journey

Buyer behaviour has changed in recent years. Now more than ever, you’ll find that buyers like to do their own research before they even get in touch with you. In return, you should ideally be there to provide helpful, valuable content that helps to answer their questions and manage their expectations at every turn.

If you do that, and the buyer then gets in touch with you for a face-to-face meeting, there’s every chance that your face-to-face meeting will go incredibly smoothly. After all, they’ll ideally have at least a rough idea of your prices, timescales, and how your products or solutions work.

Their biggest pushbacks will also have been addressed with some clever case studies. In other words, a lot of the convincing will already have been done, and the pressure will be off your team to try and ‘sell’ the idea. Instead, you can skip to the most valuable part of the sales conversation, and get down to business.

Don’t believe us? This stat might help; a staggering 95% of buyers choose someone who provides helpful content at each stage of the buying process – one of the reasons why content marketing is becoming such an invaluable asset to any business.

2. Create personalised, relevant experiences

More and more brands are becoming aware that buyers now expect personalised, interactive customer experiences when they engage with us.

However your customers are interacting with your brand, you should be aiming to provide engaging, personalised experiences that are relevant to them. This comes from knowing your customers inside-and-out; what their interests are, their age, where they like to hang out.

This is where an interactive sales tool such as a touchscreen experience really comes into its own.

You can tailor your content with fun, interactive elements that speak directly to them, tailor their content further by providing some advanced features (think demographic recognition) and even put them front and centre of their own interactive story.

TIP: Learn more about how to create better, more personalised customer experiences via our recent blog.

3. Put buyers in the driving seat

When using an interactive sales tool like a touchscreen, it’s about so much more than just the ‘WOW’ factor. Once your sales team are confident using it, they should be able to bring up relevant information at the touch of a button, so that they can answer any questions the customer may have – without missing a beat.

You can achieve this with interactive navigation, diagrams or dashboards that are visual, engaging and let you easily pick which part of your presentation is most relevant to your audience – or move seamlessly to the next point in the conversation. (We call this ‘conversational presenting’)

This is a great way to open up a two-way dialogue, and allow the buyer to lead the conversation – which we think you’ll agree, is so much more effective than having to sit through a tonne of irrelevant slides to get to the part they’re actually interested in. ‘Death by PowerPoint’ is never a good look.

TIP: It’s true that different members of your team will all have their own unique selling styles, and may want to stick to ‘what works’ for them. The good thing about a touchscreen is that it’s not limiting someone’s personal presenting style, but it does unify the content and presentation so that it’s consistent across the board.

Get the conversation started!

More often than not, getting in front of a buyer has taken a lot of effort and hard work – so when it’s time to establish a connection and have that vital conversation, the last thing you want to do is fall at the final hurdle.

B2B sales conversations should always be a two-way dialogue that’s respectful and that both parties are comfortable with. They should allow for some back-and-forth, whilst inspiring the buyer and allowing them to explore all their options in a way that keeps them engaged, interested and invested.

So, what kind of conversation do you want to start?

Take a look at our sales experiences platform in action – it speaks for itself!

If you’d like to know more about what’s possible with POP, get in touch today on +44 (0)117 329 1712 or hello@popcomms.com. We’d love to hear from you.