One salesperson wins a client’s business. All the other salespeople competing for the client lose the opportunity. In a contest that ends in winner-takes-all, it’s important to come out on top.
There are far too many sales organizations that believe that they need greater coverage to grow net new revenue. This belief causes sales leaders to believe the way to succeed is to lose more opportunities. The truth about success in sales is that what matters is winning.
See: Eat Their Lunch: Winning Customers Away from Your Competition
There are a number of ways you can create a strategic advantage and a mismatch that finds your competitors on the losing side of the ledger. The following list of strategic advantages in B2B Sales can help you develop what feels like an unfair advantage.
A Modern Sales Approach
One of the most important ways to create a strategic advantage in B2B Sales is to sell differently than your competitors. A modern sales approach provides an advantage of a legacy approach by providing buyers and decision-makers a better and more helpful sales experience.
The methodologies that make up a modern sales approach are aligned with what modern buyers need from a salesperson. Instead of positioning their company and their solution, these methodologies are truly consultative, helping the client with the information they need to change.
If you are unsure whether your sales approach is modern or legacy, you can go here to learn more. If you need help with this, you can go for more help.
Value Creation Strategies
A set of value creation strategies and tactics also produces a strategic advantage. By possessing information disparity, you can create value in the sales conversation. Value creation strategies go far beyond things like problems and pain points. Instead, they provide your clients with a world-class education on the decisions they will make and how to ensure they improve their results.
You can easily dispatch your competitors through the mismatch between a salesperson who believes the solution is the value and one who believes the value of the sales conversation dominates the client's decision on who they will help them.
See: Elite Sales Strategies: A Guide to Being One-Up, Creating Value, and Becoming Truly Consultative
Those who don’t possess these value creation strategies will lose to salespeople who have adopted and mastered the new sales conversation you need to build an advantage.
Business Acumen
You may notice that the first two ways to create a strategic advantage require more of the salesperson. We can add this third way to create an advantage in a contest to win the client’s business.
Leaders and decision-makers are not interested in being pitched by a salesperson. Because of the nature of their role, they seek people who know things they don’t know. Most salespeople don’t work on their business acumen. Without reading and researching their clients and their industry, they ask questions that cause clients to believe they lack the business acumen to make a good long-term provider.
We are already living that will find your clients looking for a salesperson who is an expert and an authority, avoiding the know-nothing sales reps. Buyers assess the salesperson based on what they know would help them improve their results.
Professional Development and Coaching
In the ever-evolving B2B environment, those who continue to develop their sales skills while mastering the traits to succeed in B2B Sales have an advantage. Development isn’t the same as sales training, even if sales training is part of their development.
Because different people need different development opportunities, this starts with a personal development plan for each salesperson. By providing each salesperson an increase in their sales effectiveness, they have an advantage over a salesperson who isn’t provided any help in improving.
Sales leaders and sales managers can make reaching their sales goals easier and more certain by increasing their win rates by coaching their sales teams.
The Ability to Build Relationships
Napoleon Hill might call this a pleasing personality. Some people are born with fast rapport-building skills. There is a difference between a salesperson who needs to be liked and a salesperson who is likable.
As the current fad in B2B sales is increasingly transactional, those who are willing to cut against the grain and provide their clients more time and build strong relationships that result in the client preferring the salesperson who took the time to build the relationship.
The transactional salesperson who competes for an order is making a mistake. You can create a strategic advantage by selling the relationship and acquire the client’s business, locking out competitors for years or decades. To execute this approach, you need relationships.
The Ultimate Strategic Advantage: Effectiveness
The ultimate sustainable strategic advantage is sales effectiveness. The greater a salesperson’s effectiveness, the greater their chances of winning a client–and all their business.
If you are a salesperson, your number one priority is improving your win rate. By increasing your effectiveness, you will be one of the few salespeople willing to work on developing strategies in B2B sales. You won’t worry about losing to a competitor when you know you possess your advantages over a salesperson who isn’t aware or interested in mastering their craft.
Strategic Advantages In B2B Sales
The six strategic advantages here, starting with a modern sales approach and the accompanying sales methodologies and the value creation strategies provide a powerful platform to win in a contest. Your business acumen and your development and coaching accelerate your ability to create value and win more deals.
By making sales effectiveness your number one priority, whether you are a salesperson or a sales leader, you increase your odds of winning more opportunities. You will need less coverage in your pipeline and avoid the strategy that suggests you need to lose two-thirds of your opportunities to reach your goals. You are better off with a strategy to win more deals, even if you take time to build your sustainable strategic advantage.
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