B2B, SMB, B2C, ABC ~ Acronym Nightmare (Sales Speak)

"Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service."
~Henry Ford 

I have gone on record to have a strong dislike for acronyms.  The reason being, far too often, sales professionals, their managers, technical and/or operations team have a lingo of their own, cloaked by acronyms.  Unfortunately, unless you live in their world, they may as well be speaking in code for all that it makes sense to their audience.  Too many people fall into the habit of using acronyms that can discriminate or turn off their prospects. 

The title of this Blog did use acronyms that are popular amongst professionals and businesses created as a universal language amongst club members of “Business Speak”.  Allow me to enlighten and explain what they mean:

1.    B2B: Business to Business: (Source: Wikipedia) Business-to-business (B2B) is commerce transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer.   B2B branding is a term used in marketing.

2.    B2C: Business to Consumer:  Wikipedia identifies as Retail which is the sale of goods and services from individuals or businesses to the end-user aka the consumer. The consumer is the one who pays to consume the goods and services produced. As such, consumers play a vital role in the economic system of a nation. In the absence of effective consumer demand, producers would lack one of the key motivations to produce: to sell to consumers. The consumer also forms part of the chain of distribution.

3.   SMB: Small-to-Medium Business:  This is usually a key identifier on the size of a company or sales professional target of set of types of businesses they identify as customers and potential customers (aka prospects).  Each organization can vary on their own interpretation on how they identify Small to Medium Business. Often it used to disquished by the size of the company (i.e. Small – 10 to 200 employees and Medium 200-1000 employes.  They are usually owned by private owners or investors, and sometimes employee owned.

4.   Enterprise or Major Accounts are very large scale corporations that can have between 1000 to 250,000++ employees spread globally, multiple countries, lead by a CEO who reports to a Board of Directors supported by a team of executives that fall under an organization chart reporting to the CEO.  The CEO is held accountable by an elected Board of Directors who drive investments by shareholders with a strong eye on profitability.




When it comes to selling B2B, B2C, SMB or Enterprise customers – what is similar and what can be different?

Time.  Whether you are trying to engage a decision maker who is an owner of a small B2B (SMB) company or an executive for a major corporation, B2C or Enterprise - they're all limited with their time and the attention they will afford you, if at all.  Therefore, you better do your homework, craft insightful questions that are meaningful ..... don't dare to waste their time. 
The good news is that either owners or executives will pay close attention to you if you uncover a problem that they may not have identified as a need yet.  Strive to bring forward creative and innovative solutions that help them (examples of some of their problems):
  • More profitable
  • Drive revenue
  • Be more competitive
  • Increase customer satisfaction
  • Decrease/avoid employee frustration
  • Eliminate administrative headaches and hassles
  • Increase employee morale
  • Identify time wasters that can be eliminated or streamlined
  • Create efficiencies: Streamline how their business operates
  • Increase awareness/improve their brand
  • Handle growth
  • Manage negative growth
  • Help educate others:  employees, customers, media
  • Improve technology:  advise them on solutions that may impact intimately
  • Decrease costs
  • Educate:  inform them on trends in their industry, their location (country/city)
  • Creativity - solutions/technology/marketing/social media that helps with the   aforementioned
  • Improve appearance/quality/messages that attract new customers
  • Promote customer loyalty/referrals
  • Manage change

You will do yourself, your team, your company but mostly your CUSTOMERS a huge service when you examine your widget or service and draw out those bullets, and investigate what you have to offer that will solve any of those problems or needs shared as strong examples.


It isn’t always apparent.  Often it takes time to be talking to the right people in the organization while cross-referencing your research on them, their industry, government regulations, local political atmosphere, that may present you with what you already have in your back pocket from your own operations team, service personnel, technical resources, customer service, web feedback, etc.


No where have I said anything about price!  You can decrease the cost of doing business for a company by streamlining their processes with a solution that provides a service or technology that solves a function performed by employees who find it unpopular, makes them miserable when they have to do it, or are more valued doing something that is more directly linked to their skills and what you’re paying them.  Your solution can offset the cost of saving profit drainers.  Smart executives can grasp on to this concept.  Unfortunately, middle managers are more often gathering information, asking you more and more questions, asking for estimates upon estimates that only spells price shopping.  If you are being wise, selling smart, you have identified some of the pain areas, for example:


·        Keeping track of data

·        Keying information manually

·        Doubled up efforts

·        Difficult to operate

·        Too reliant on a third party that is unreliable

·        Susceptible to human error


All you are doing is asking relevant questions that are directly impacting their business.  You can be sincere and excited when you put in the time to do the research then ask what are their goals or what are their biggest headaches.  When you are able to go back with what looks like a “no brainer” solution, guess who becomes the “Go to Guy or Gal” … yes YOU!
"Basically you are selling a world as an actor, right?  I mean, it's like a sales person:  if you believe in your product, you know your product, you will sell it a lot better."

~Paul Walker(Fast and Furious)


I highly recommend checking out this slideshow by Harvard Business Review (HBR ... grrrrr Acronym, lol) on the "Trouble with Sales People": 


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VISUALLY SPEAKING

"Create your own visual style .. let it be unique for yourself yet identifiable for others."                                                  
~Orson Welles
 
Social media dynamics are more profound when it allows you to simply reTweet, share, Google Plus the images that appeal to you.  I started to share on an ongoing basis the photographs and images that appealed to me from primarily #Pinterest .  I adopted a new sidebar on my Blog of images that I liked on Pinterest.
 
Prior to that, I was invited to post on a group PIN of "Best of Pinterest".  As time elapsed and momentum eclipsed what I thought was phenomenal imagery transformed to an opinion that mattered by the momentum of those who re-PINned, shared, liked what I thought was the best of the best of photography. 
 
What wasn't obvious to me was what appealed to my visual stimulation would appeal to so many others.
 
What is NOW obvious to me is that we all have a creativity nestled within ourselves, but it is only the brave photographers and artists that are able to open up what we find amazing or extrapolate our own vulnerabilities to expose ourselves, our creativity to being examined, microscoped by others to critique what we identified as unique and visually phenomenal at the time.
 
It is with distinct pleasure that I share some of the images that resounded amongst many - photographers, imagers, creative types that shared themselves and I identified as some of the best:
 

 

 

 
 

 
 
There you have it.  These are a compilation of some of the best images I identified on Pinterest that appealed to me.  Luckily, many others agreed and re-PINned and shared.
 
That is what I love about Pinterest it allows me to curate what I visually find appealing.   I was honoured when invited to post to the "Best of Pinterest" and did so.
 
What I'm not telling you is that I also have a board "ArtWOW" amongst many.  What I found disturbing was an inbox email from Pinterest: I just received notification from Pinterest about a complaint that I was infringing on a copyright on a Marilyn portrait that I shared. I did apologize to the artist but also pointed out: "FYI Pinterest is a phenomenal way to showcase your artwork and by ensuring your images have a stamp by you on them, will insure that the credit goes to the proper person. If you put the copyright mark on it, it can also serve as protection on legal matters, prevent reproductions. I'd be commending people who are willing to broadcast and share your talent rather than complaining."

Don't post or share anything that you don't want to be shared.  Hide and conceal your talent where others won't post or re-share what they find appealing.  If they do, don't complain when others are sharing your talent.  Hide out, protect your copyright.  However, don't expect others to give you credit on your creativity.  It's quite annoying when we're trying to promote your talent and you complain.
 


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Gold Medal. Gold Statue. Gold Mine.

"Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek."
~Mario Andretti


Watching the Sochi Olympics 2014 was amazing!  One couldn't help but be inspired by watching so many amazing triumphs.  The winners won because of:
  • Preparation
  • Dedication
  • Teamwork
  • Sacrifice
  • Discipline
Sales or any career development should be the same as an Olympian.  Truly, if you want to be the best of the best, you can't wing it.  Your organization and customers pay and expect you to be worth gold. 


For example, those figure skaters, judging controversies aside, spent hours and hours both on and off the ice training.  They don't just lace on the skates and go out and give it a whirl and hope for the best to happen.  If you have ever tried ice skating, you can't.  It takes practice, skill, dedication, discipline and often sacrifice to even make it to competition level, never mind the Olympics.

The same should be said for your career and sales.  Yet how many people figuratively just hop on the ice expecting to do flips and spins right away?  Many, lots, tons.  Never mind that in sales, you are not paying for ice time, coaches etc.  Your company is - and they're trusting you to be the best.

What about the Oscars?  I can't imagine Mathew McConaughey, Mr. RomCom, winning the Oscar without all of those attributes, can you?  (Note the stark transformation physically.  How's that for dedication and sacrifice?)



You too can transform yourself from being an empty suit into a star.  Don't step outside the door without doing some self examination:  is it a career that suits you?  Can you devote the time to reading, learning, training to be the best?  Of course you can.  It is at your fingertips.  What nobody can hand you, is the Gold Medal, Gold Statue without some work on your part. 

Be thankful and feel blessed if you work for a company who sponsors, pays, provides additional training, mentoring to help you.  That's all fine and dandy.  If you don't embrace and absorb it with the dedication to be the best, you don't deserve it.

What about their paycheques being incentive enough?  What career possibly has no ceiling on your earning potential than sales?  If you put in the hours, take the time to learn, practice continuously, be disciplined, you too can earn a Gold Medal or Statue - it's called respect and admiration for your skills.

What are you going to do today to start being the best of the best?




The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” Vidal Sassoon
Read more at http://under30ceo.com/50-best-success-quotes-of-all-time/#I2P0hl0wAju6seAU.99
"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary."
~Vidal Sassoon

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The future is bright for sales professionals ... and organizations with sales cultures

"Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them."

~ Ann Landers




If you're a job seeker that falls within "sales professional" looking for inspiration or motivation, you don't have to look far.   A recent post on Linked In by Forbes Contributing Writer George Anders article "Facebook's Hiring Surprise" http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140210021038-59549-facebook-s-hiring-surprise?trk=mp-details-rr-rmpost  forecasts a sunny future for those talented or leaning towards sales.  The enlightening article points out:

What Facebook craves these days is people who can sell.  Scan the listings on Facebook's careers page, and you'll find an impressive 170 or so openings in sales and business development.
There isn't a single technical department at Facebook that is as eager to hire. As of Feb. 9, Facebook was hunting for 97 more software engineers, another 78 infrastructure specialists, and 51 data/analytics experts. Yes, fast-growing Facebook has some openings in every section. But the demand for extra people is most intense in the time-tested world of sales.... (The exact total fluctuates slightly, day by day.) The reason: Facebook's money engine is built on advertising. Even in the highly automated world of online marketing, it turns out that making deals come together still requires a human touch.

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”
~Milton Berle


Brilliant!  many would say.  I say:  something so obvious to me, shouldn't be a surprise.   ALL organizations, regardless of whether they are technology driven, retail/consumer, travel, etc. should be customer or oriented which translates into selling: 

  1. Asks questions about their customers business.
  2. Listens carefully to what their customers are saying.
  3. Communicating those needs to the people in the organization that can make things happen.
  4. Look for ways to improve their service to the customers, to strengthen relationship,
  5. Show customers how they can remove headaches, streamline processes,
  6. Can concisely show how that one widget or service can improve on overall costs
Organizations that are hit with a bolt of lightening that they need sales efforts may just beginning to heed B2B (Business to Business) organizations who consider every individual in their organization a sales person from the CEO who promotes the organization and what they are doing innovatively and better than anyone else, to the Chief of Finance who works financial magic on keeping costs in check while being wizards at making their offering affordable, to Marketing Gurus who maintain consistent communication across all material, social media and web platforms.  The organization mechanism churns briskly to ensure customers have the best experiences possible.

Organizations that pull together and are often recognized as being one of the "best employers" to work for because they perform as a team, one division not better or smarter or more important than the other.  The big winners are those that agree and enforce the culture that they are customer oriented and sales is a focus -- demonstrated by key words:  drive revenue, improved satisfaction, customer retention, repeat consumers, brand loyalty, customer focussed, employee expertise.  They leave the things that drive employees crazy at the board room table:  increase profitability, cost recovery, shareholder value, loss, pending layoffs.  Employees and new hires are trusting that the executive team takes care of them at the board room table while holding their middle managers accountable on all the metrics surrounding profitability, cost controls, employee turnover.

So why would Facebook suddenly start showing an obvious concentration of hiring sales professionals?  It seems clear to someone like me who started a sales career selling advertising for magazines where costs were covered by ad revenue, not subscription sales.  It would appear that the ads on Facebook are not covering the cost of operations.  Going public with a share offering would substantiate that revenue was not covering its growth.

Let's face it:  sales tend to drive revenue and capture new business which means it creates jobs to service the customers.   Often creating sales positions is a Band-Aid especially when it is used to jumpstart a business' revenue or as a stop gap to losing profits.  Sadly, sales professionals are given budgets to attain and used as a measuring stick to their overall contribution.  A clear signal is when their is a lot of turnover in the sales arena.  Turnover in sales hurts both the customers and the organization who hasn't drawn out a clear organizational chart and where accountabilities lay.   It costs money to cultivate customers, and too often looked at from a transactional perspective rather than strengthening relationships with customers.

More importantly, sales should be considered the "voice" of the customer to the organization, not just an individual selling a gadget or a one-off service. Transactional sales are a thing of the past, relationships are where it's at and sales professionals have a vested interested in maintaining relationships (think: referrals, growth opportunities of customers, problem solving) and those who have a job created because of a growth in customer base should pay attention to that communication ... or be proactively communicating what they discover as a need for the customer that the organization can solve.  The organizations that will survive and thrive don't just hire experienced sales professionals and throw them out on to the streets. 

Winners will provide continual training, reinforce excellence by recognition, attract top talent and reward those demonstrate going the extra mile to improve customer experience, track costs effectively.

There are optimization tools like CRMs (Customer Relationship Management) systems in place to effectively capture communications across all sectors from front line service personnel, customer service, operations -- not just the sales team.  The CRMs can create dashboards for close examination on performance.  However, rather than just microscope the sales efforts, examine which customers are the best ones (less complaints, pay on time, easy to service, profitability based on service needs, will collaborate on increased costs with meeting increased services).

Once you can create the ideal customer based on current profiles, interview those clients to find out what they REALLY think about their sales professional, customer service, service technicians, accounting practices, financial details, and the organization's brand. 

Take that perfect customer profile and collaborate amongst all divisions and ask what they can do to go the extra mile to ensure that they can keep that high level of satisfaction.

Ask marketing to research what avenues are the best to attract those same customers ... instead of haphazard ad campaigns that appeal to the masses, be more selective and narrow in on to programs that solidify those relationships via social media, loyalty rewards, referral rewards, personalized promotions that draw out revenue in a less painful and expensive manner.


Make it easy for your customers to do business with you!  Don't allow service, technical, or finance stonewall the customer.   I've experienced organizations that operate in small silos within large frames  that makes the weight of the relationship responsibility fall where it is less manned to keep costs in check.  Ultimately, that can lead to employee turnover and create a gap.  Customers themselves are being asked to do more with less and frequently less patient with those they pay for a service to.  Don't ask your employees to shoulder the blame and where the customer is asked to be compassionate.  They will have even less patience when they're tasked with training the replacement employee who has been thrown in with little onboarding, job shadowing or training. 

It is wise to keep corporate communications and culture private.   Who really likes to air dirty laundry or expose skeletons?  Usually disgruntled people.  In other words, don't allow employees find out the health of the organization through the media or via shareholders' displeasure.  Be upfront, create a team with a "we" attitude that everyone has a stake in the health of the organization.  You may end up surprised how many talented people you have on board who take pride in who they work for and may have ideas that can contribute to the success.  Don't leave it on one area's shoulders, like sales.   Create a culture of pride where employees are not whining to customers about cutbacks as excuses to why they aren’t getting the service or product or company they bought into.  Sales job is much easier when there is a strong brand, solid financial future, and positive media translated by customer cheerleaders.   The organization will win when both customers and employees are lined up at the door.  Shareholders will naturally gravitate to healthy organization because information is readily available and travels fast.

"If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."
~Thomas Edison






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