Steffan Edward Bote Shares His Top Five B2B Sales Trends For 2022

As 2021 drew to a close, the effects of the constricted economy made their presence known in the Canadian business world. While labour issues, supply chain woes, and lockdowns affected the economy, the B2B sales machine continued to operate even under challenging conditions.

Sales expert, Steffan Edward Bote of Calgary, Alberta, outlines five business-to-business sales trends that will shape the market in 2022.

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1. Digital Sales

The increasing automation of the sales process is already being felt in the B2B landscape. Reaching customers where they are has become difficult due to business travel restrictions that endure to this day. Still, many businesses are seeing an uptick in their sales activity thanks to a fully virtual model.

Sales personnel will be spending more time on larger projects, and sales teams will become more extensive. Sales teams will make customer-tailored digital portals and microsites to attract particular companies. These methods allow the client-seller relationship to improve, even before the signed sales contract significantly.

2. Deciding Which Businesses To Target

Sellers have long targeted clients based on their company size, industry, and location. These prospecting requirements are helpful to an extent, but more data is becoming available that can broaden this narrow view and attract more customers.

Companies can move beyond the simple SIC or NAICS business classification code and get into the inner workings of a company. For example, sales personnel can judge companies based on their green technology, data visualization, and network security.

This finely targeted sales method is an excellent choice when it comes to company size and location as well. Today’s sales data can target companies with more than one location and find companies with facilities in other countries. They can target companies according to employee growth rather than simply using the number of employees at any given time.

Finally, employee statistics and revenue can be modelled more accurately today than in the past. Instead of concentrating on the bare facts, sales personnel will be able to zero in on a company’s growth rate.

3. Increasing Trust In A Digital World

The sales process has the potential to become very rigid and impersonal given today’s trends. Savvy sales personnel know that they need to build a sense of personal trust with their clients even in an increasingly digital world.

In order to create credibility, some avenues that can be taken include specifically tailored videos and targeted LinkedIn messages. Since it can be difficult to weigh the benefits of each company when products are so similar, providing a personal touch can help to connect with the customer.

4. Automating CRM Tasks

CRM or customer relationship management is becoming increasingly automated in today’s business world. CRM systems store customer data, track interactions with the customer and provide a way to share this data with everyone working on the project.

Sales development representatives or SDRs will find that more of their tasks can be automated in 2022. After the ideal customer persona has been identified, and their process of deciding to buy has been discovered, it is possible to automate many tasks.

Account executives and sales development representatives can be given targeted tasks in the CRM software when company data has changed. For example, when a company changes its principal employees, account executives are tasked with contacting the company to introduce themselves to the new staff members and see if there are any unmet needs that the sales team can address.

5. Growth Led By Products

While many companies rely on marketing-led growth and sales-led growth, the product itself can be the driving force behind growth in 2022. The product-led growth model can affect expansion, new sales, and customer retention.

One of the best examples of product-led growth is the “freemium” model, where the product can be downloaded and used in a limited fashion before contacting the sales team to purchase it. Product-led customers tend to enter the sales pipeline later because they have already had the chance to try the product.

Understanding How Sales Is Changing

Steffan Edward Bote from Calgary, Alberta, believes that the sales landscape is changing quickly and that companies must keep up with these five points to create growth in 2022.

As the economy inevitably rebounds, new opportunities will be to sell to new and pre-existing companies. Companies will feel more ready to expand their operations thanks to improving economic conditions. Having the ability to pivot and adopt new methods is a must when keeping up with the changes in the business world this year.

Finding Success In 2022

Steffan Edward Bote wants to encourage companies of all sizes to look into ways to digitize their sales process, expand their data collection, automate routine tasks, and shift to a product-centred growth model. These recommendations should be combined with extensive research into the companies targeted by sales personnel and an open-minded attitude about reaching them.