A “good” B2B strategy is buyer-centric; it addresses the needs of business buyers and positions your SMB as a strong, viable player in today’s competitive marketplace. However, only sustainable and effective implementation can ensure long-term profitability and success.
Unfortunately, many businesses fail to implement this. A recent global SMB survey by Salesforce identified the biggest challenges facing SMBs as:
Acquiring new customers.
Long-term planning. Customer loyalty.
Financial management.
For many SMBs, including technology, accounting, and legal, these challenges are becoming even more difficult to overcome given the many changes in the needs, expectations, and buying behavior of business customers.
To succeed in B2B, SMBs need to take four steps:
1. Prioritization
Management teams need to prioritize at two levels:
Identify which customers and prospects your company will focus on.
Decide which business innovations to make. h. What innovations or improvements to make in your SME to meet the needs of these target customers and prospects.
These business innovations could occur in one or more areas of your SME. This could include:
Products.
Services and support.
Processes. Marketing.
Organizational structure.
The selection of target customers and business innovations should be based on a set of criteria related to:
Alignment of the business’s customers’ needs with the company’s goals and objectives.
Ability to identify and implement business innovations that meet both customer needs and business goals.
Impact on business growth.
2. Customer Plans
After prioritizing your customers and innovation opportunities, you should create separate plans for each target and key customer. These plans should detail:
How your SME will create value through existing services and processes.
The business innovations your company will introduce.
How your company will interact with key stakeholders. NOTE: These plans should take into account who the key decision makers (also known as the buying committee) are, what their priorities and expectations are, and how they buy. All of this may have changed in the last 12 months.
3. Execution
This is where things get serious. Execution happens on two levels:
A. Key Account and Prospect Management: It’s important to cover the three key account management roles:
Relationship Manager: This person (usually an Account Manager or Business Development Manager) builds and strengthens relationships and protects the business from competitors trying to infiltrate and win the customer.
The “Driver”: This person is responsible for maximizing business within the customer account. This is a critical role because without it, no one can drive account growth or create or implement customer plans. Note: Often this role is simply given to the Relationship Lead. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. It is important that the person in this role has the skills needed to influence customers. h. Understands and responds to customer needs.
Technical Expert: This person has the knowledge and expertise needed in a specific area to solve problems and facilitate discussions. Without this person on the team, small businesses have limited opportunities to grow and create value.
B. Execute Business Innovation: This may include establishing a cross-functional team to develop and implement defined innovation initiatives.
4. Review and revise
Because business customer needs and market conditions change frequently and new trends emerge, both customer plans and implemented innovation efforts should be reviewed regularly (at least quarterly). This allows small businesses to better serve their customers and focus their resources in the right areas.
