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B2B Sales Professional's Network

This group is now one of the largest free networks of sales professionals. If you're a sales professional, the discussions, articles, news, tips, resources and membership will prove a valuable resource for you.

While there are already several good general forums discussing sales issues we saw a need for a forum that specifically addressed the B2B environment as the issues, sales skills and processes in the B2B environment are very different (and often very contradictory with what works in the retail space).

You will need to join Linkedin to view/join this forum.

Enter the B2B sales Professional's Network.

While the group discourages overt promotion the forum can be a good place to profile what you offer the sales community.

Like all good forums initial participation will breed further participation and value to everyone. So please support us by contributing to the community and promoting it to your colleagues. We value your responses to issues and questions posted by your fellow community members.

You can click on the 'B2B Sales Professional's network'  link on the left hand side of this page or to go directly to the forum please click here

by Liam Venter:  Author of the popular sales training manual
'The Consultative Sales Professional'
You can obtain a copy here

A deal Vs a bargain

Many years ago a colleague, Simon de Boer  used to say that 'everyone loves a deal'. I initially attached no special value to the phrase. I came however, to recognise Simon's comment as a valuable sales and marketing truism.

I also noted that Simon never said 'everyone loves a bargain' (I am not sure if this was a conscious selection of terms or not).

So what's the difference between a 'deal' and a 'bargain'?

What's a bargain? - to my mind a bargain is something cheap.

What's a deal? - a deal is a customised transaction that benefits the client in some way better than the standard offer.

Not only do 'deals' help sellers win business that they might otherwise miss, often a deal will also benefit the seller more than the standard offer would. Therefore it is in the interest of sales professionals to discover deals they can create for their clients.

It's impossible to discover mutually beneficial deals (customised transactions) unless the seller is conversant with the client's issues, environment and circumstances. A consultative selling process greatly assists with this discovery.

Rather than offer your clients' 'bargains' that erode your margins look for other 'negotiables' that you can use in creating mutually beneficial deals for your clients.

1. Payment options: understand the client's funding options and budget allocation cycles. Offering alternative payment options e.g. leasing or structuring a capex purchase as a opex service cost can often be very valuable to the client.

2. Time: implementation and delivery dates, payment dates.

3. Alternative product options: colour, speed, size, weight, and other options.

4. Customised service package: could include engineering support, service contracts, phone support, extended warranties, instant replacement, fast access to spares, etc.

5. Packaging pre-sales consulting support for future project: if your assistance has been valuable this time in helping the client, then you have shown that is would also be valuable in the future.

6. Customised implementation package: implementation assistance/initial and ongoing new staff training, etc

7. Offering alternative quality or grades of solution to suit their requirements.

Sales people need to be given both operating guidelines and flexibility to be able to created customised deals for clients.

Never underestimate the value of customising transactions and packages to suit each unique client as a powerful tool for increaing your sale revenues and profits after all...

We all appreciate a deal!

by Liam Venter:  Author of the popular sales training manual
'The Consultative Sales Professional'
You can obtain a copy here