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B2B Sales Strategy: Insider Tips for Startups

Posted on April 3, 2012

by Mark Elliott

On March 22^nd I had presented “B2B Sales Strategy” as part of the MaRS Best Practices series. It was a great experience dealing with the MaRS team both on the preparation of the event and at the session. There were almost 30 attendees and we had many questions and interactions from the crowd. The hour long presentation and questions were captured on video.

The highlights of the presentation included:

Having a great Value Proposition is essential
Use a CRM
Identify the steps in a successful sale
Focus on the right contacts and targets

These highlights are expanded on in the video provided:

You can also view the full presentation on Slide Share:

B2B Sales Strategy for Startups

View more PowerPoint from Venture Accelerator Partners

It was a privilege to be asked to contribute to this session. Visit the MaRS website for lots of great content that can help startups. If you have any B2B Sales Strategy questions, please get in contact with me through our website and I’d be happy to provide some assistance.

1 Comment - Posted in Mark Elliott, Sales Strategy Tagged with: b2b sales, Business Development, CRM, Linkedin, MaRS, Part-Time VP Sales, sales process, sales strategy, Social Media, Toronto, Twitter, Value proposition

Keeping Your Sales Funnel Full

Posted on March 6, 2012

By Steve Gruber

In businesses whether big or small, it is important to continue to “hunt” for new business opportunities and keep your sales funnel full. This goes for both established companies and start-ups. Since starting VA Partners in 2006, this is one of the biggest challenges we have seen companies face. In established firms, we have seen the sales process become more of an account management function vs a new business prospecting function. In start-ups the challenge is more acute, what happens in many cases when a new client is landed, it is “all hands on deck” to get that client up and running; during that period everything else grinds to a halt including the sales funnel.

The risk in not actively keeping your funnel full in this situation is pretty simple. In start-ups, you simply won’t have any new revenues coming into to keep the lights on. In established firms, you put yourself at greater risk if one of your core client(s) leaves you for whatever reason (i.e. technological shift, gone out of business).

I know of a situation where a company has been at risk:

We have a customer, that when we started with them they had one large client that comprised over 95% of their revenues. This is a dangerous position for any firm. When their client was acquired there was concern that the operations could be consolidated or cut back. We were brought in to help them diversify their revenue base and so far have successfully grown them from one client to over 40 over two years.

A few key tips if to help keep your sales funnel full include:

Put a consistent amount of effort into the sales process on an ongoing basis – dedicating time for new business
Ensure the sales team is motivated and compensated to sell
Identify activities that help drive new sales and measure them accordingly – activities could include cold calling, meetings, proposals, demos
Have a regular sales funnel review process – pay attention to opportunities further up in the funnel not just near the bottom

If you need assistance growing your sales funnel, driving new revenues and mitigating your risk, feel free to contact me.

2 Comments - Posted in Sales Strategy, Sales Tactics, Steve Gruber Tagged with: drive revenue, Sales, sales funnel, sales process, Startup tips

Selling to Government for Startups: Big Opportunity and Big Challenges

Posted on December 13, 2011

by Steve Gruber

Selling to government and government organizations is always and forever will be alluring. One normally thinks of big (or bigger budgets anyway), long-term client potential, always getting paid, great anchor and reference client.

These things are all correct however, what is not often recognized by Startups is:

The length of the sales cycle – government sales cycles can take a long time so be sure to give yourself enough time and have other irons in the fire will help to pay your bills in the meantime.

The challenge in leveraging – government departments often times don’t talk to each other and in many cases, given their sheer size, don’t know each other, so leveraging one win into others can be challenging.

Bureaucratic process – decisions don’t get made quickly or easily in government operations. Like most large organizations, there is a very formal procurement process. In many cases, the procurement teams are trying to standardize your product or service, so being innovative can pose a challenge for them and you.

Beware the Standing Offer – government departments will often issue Standing Offers for work and they can take a considerable amount of resource to complete (similar to an RFP) but they do not guarantee you any revenues. Getting on a Standing Offer means that your organization has been really just put on the “approved” vendors list and if and when a need arises, people may or may not call you.

We have worked with, are working with and know of numerous firms who are and have sold to the government in the past. Truth be told, if you asked them if the investment of time and energy was worth it, you would most likely get a muted “yes”. A few weeks ago I was on the phone with a prospect and they had spent 2 years trying to sell to a particular provincial government organization (comprising of many divisions). They were successful in that they were able to get two of the divisions to purchase but were having a considerable amount of difficulty leveraging these “wins” into additional divisional sales within the province and outside. Every single time they had to start the sales process over again from the beginning.

Ultimately, I think most of these firms realized in the end that you need a healthy mix of clients to succeed both private and public. Government clients can be great in the long-term, so keep an eye on them but don’t put all your eggs into one basket.

Our recommendation, select your target markets carefully and it is OK to include government as part of the mix but don’t rely on it solely. We believe you will oftentimes find faster wins selling your B2B solution in the private sector as decisions can be made much faster.

If you need help developing a sales strategy that includes a healthy mix of target accounts please feel free to contact me.

0 Comments - Posted in Sales Strategy, Steve Gruber Tagged with: Government, Sales, sales cycle, sales process, Selling, Startups

Start-ups! Sell Early, Sell More Often

Posted on November 15, 2011

by Steve Gruber

There have been many papers and articles written about the importance of R&D, continued product development and the role of constant innovation within a company; however, without top-line revenues, all those R&D efforts are in vain.

We have seen and been involved in a number of start-ups that built a product, and rather than pushing hard to sell and market the product they have chosen instead to put sales and marketing efforts on the back burner while they continue to put the majority of focus and limited cash flow into further developing or in some cases “perfecting” the product. The latter rarely ever happens because even the best products continue to get better over time. One analogy to live by is that if you are not slightly embarrassed by your first product, you have not sold it soon enough.

The number of companies that have spent time burning their start-up investment, whether self-funded, angel or VC, on R&D and then with 6 months of cash left decide they need to start generating revenue is very, very long. Don’t be one of these firms. Revenue generation should be more than just a thought, it should be integrated into the entire lifecycle of your R&D efforts – you should always be selling. In some cases, this may mean searching for pilot project opportunities or networking to seed the market or simply doing some work on social media to create a buzz. Then assume over the initial 12 to 18 months sales revenues will be limited, so give yourself enough time to get ramped up. No matter which way you cut and slice it, and even if you are really lucky, it will take 12 to 18 months to see the results of a sustained sales and marketing efforts, particularly around B2B products. Buying cycles are long; decision makers leave, corporate priorities change and in the midst of this, you still need to keep pounding away with the game plan of building a big enough sales funnel that you don’t care who closes, someone will due to sheer numbers. We are huge believers that sales is a process and a science much more than it is an art.

Ultimately, your success will hinge on you generating revenue, so don’t get stuck in the R&D rut, get your product to a point that it works and can be sold and then start doing just that – selling it! Once you get some traction and clients, work to continue to better it.

If you read this and the situation sounds familiar and you need some sales and marketing horsepower to help, call us. We would love the opportunity to discuss how we may be able to help.

0 Comments - Posted in Sales Strategy, Steve Gruber Tagged with: investment, Part-Time Sales Rep, Revenue generation, Sales, sales process, small business, Startups, strategy

Running on All Cylinders – How VA Partners Helped Thomas Solutions Grow from 1 to 40 Customers

Posted on October 27, 2011

by Steve Gruber

Over the last 5 years we have had 50 clients and one of these clients, Thomas Solutions, was recently featured in the Toronto Star. Thomas Solutions is a 40 year old company that specializes in work truck rentals and leasing, manpower services and cartage services. We started with Thomas Solutions about 2 years ago and at that time they had one very large customer that comprised over 99% of their annual revenue and no website. Our goal was simple, diversify the revenue base and improve their visibility. We were to accomplish this by growing sales and by increasing Thomas’ mindshare in the market. We focused our efforts specifically on the work truck rentals and leasing business as it was the most scalable, repeatable and offered the best returns. Today, Thomas Solutions boasts over 40 clients and has doubled its work truck rental and leasing business. A few of the key successes include:

Helping to double revenue and grow customer base from 1 to over 40 clients
Active sales funnel with more than 50 additional opportunities and growing
Developing a target database of over 750 companies and growing
Running successful marketing campaigns for Thomas in two key markets comprising of print, radio, TV
Developing a corporate video and video testimonials for use on the website and in customer presentations
Working with our PR partner to secure two articles in tier 1 national papers – The National Post and Toronto Star

Thomas Solutions success was built on using Venture Accelerator Partners ‘Sales and Marketing Fast Start Plan’. It entailed alot of hard work and support from not only Thomas’ General Manager and senior leadership group but also our team and our partners. From a sales and marketing perspective though, I wanted to highlight some of the key steps we undertook to get to this point as I believe they are valuable and can be transferred to almost any business to help achieve success. They include:

Working with the senior management to develop a sales and marketing plan that looks at past successes, the value proposition, core competencies, human and capital resources to identify what markets to focus on
Refining the value proposition with a focus on addressing client business pain in quantitative means – basically building a compelling and quantifiable business case
Targeting of specific markets and companies where the Thomas model has the most likelihood of success
Utilizing a CRM system to manage the customer and prospect database which is also used for a variety of marketing and sales purposes (Newsletter, direct mail)
Providing prospect research, cold calling, targeted emails, follow ups and proposals to end clients
Understanding where to use marketing to help support the sales effort and create brand awareness and staying power; and being able to try in some cases a few different options
Executing the actual sales and marketing work with precision and dedicated effort and feeding back learnings into the messaging
Providing ongoing support so the momentum is not lost

I think ultimately the development of sales and marketing plan with actionable items and then the execution of that plan is what makes our relationship with Thomas Solutions a success. If you have a need for sales and marketing assistance to help get your business moving in the right direction, please don’t hesitate to call. We would love to help.

2 Comments - Posted in Marketing Strategy, Sales Strategy, Steve Gruber Tagged with: business model, CRM, drive revenue, Hamilton, marketing, Part-Time Sales Rep, Part-Time VP Sales, Sales, sales process, small business, strategy, Thomas Solutions