So ... who's in B2B?

[GuestUser156]

I feel lonely around here sometimes .

Lately, almost everything I see is Amazon and B2C-stuff.

All the active top guys on the forum are in B2C, as far as I know. Maybe I'm wrong.

I've always (lol, I'm 20. 1,5 year since I started ) been trying my luck in B2B for no specific reason. I dont know ... I think I'm better at finding needs in B2B vs B2C, and I see no reason in shifting my focus right now.

I want discussions on things like client meetings, payment terms, bad payers, negotiation, making offers, B2B marketing, converting over the phone, repeat business etc.

Am I alone on this one? .

 

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[jon.a]

@Kak

 

[ScottyTruong]

I'm B2B

 

[The Duc]

I'm B2B.

Fewer customers. Repeat customers. MUCH higher lifetime customer value.

 

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[jockinbox]

I'm also in b2b, feel free to email me

 

[Get Right]

I do both.

 

[Achilles]

I think b2b is the best...have you all had experience in your particular industry before uncovering the need?

 

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[BigBrianC]

I think b2b SaaS, especially mobile, has a huge future

 

[Andy Black]

I'm B2B.

 

[GuestUser156]

I'm B2B.

So Andy, I suppose you do PPC advertising in your business? .

I'm struggling with my PPC advertising, because the monthly searches are so low, it only generates a few clicks a day.
Still, the average order size is around $2k ... The traffic volume is just so low it's frustrating .

 

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[Andy Black]

So Andy, I suppose you do PPC advertising in your business? .

I don't use PPC to get clients for myself if that's what you meant. That just comes naturally via word-of-mouth.

However, I do plan on using PPC to generate leads that I'll use to acquire businesses who'll buy the leads.

I'm struggling with my PPC advertising, because the monthly searches are so low, it only generates a few clicks a day.
Still, the average order size is around $2k ... The traffic volume is just so low it's frustrating .

Bid high, and remarket to them too.

 

[Ubermensch]

I feel lonely around here sometimes .

Lately, almost everything I see is Amazon and B2C-stuff.

All the active top guys on the forum are in B2C, as far as I know. Maybe I'm wrong.

I've always (lol, I'm 20. 1,5 year since I started ) been trying my luck in B2B for no specific reason. I dont know ... I think I'm better at finding needs in B2B vs B2C, and I see no reason in shifting my focus right now.

I want discussions on things like client meetings, payment terms, bad payers, negotiation, making offers, B2B marketing, converting over the phone, repeat business etc.

Am I alone on this one? .

You're not alone, man. I do B2B and B2C, and I much prefer B2B.

Regarding your discussion points:

In B2B client meetings, I prefer to communicate over the phone. This saves tremendous time. I never much liked the B2B sales role of, say, a commercial real estate broker, precisely for the time reason. As a commercial real estate broker, you have spend your time showing spaces, and your market is severely limited. You can't affect the world on a global basis if you're limited to only brokering deals in a particular state.

It's all about time efficiency. Selling the right service over the phone can be extremely effective, especially if you are using the right tools.

An example of this is the program called phone burner, a Cloud based power dialer that boosts phone prospecting productivity 447%. It does this by drastically reducing the time you'd typically waste manually dialing numbers, listening to rings, and leaving a voice mail. Phone Burner automates all of this, and can make 85 - 90 calls in an hour.

If you want to really put this concept on steroids, you can use the Mojo Dialer, which is three times more effective than Phone Burner. Mojo Dialer essentially works the same as Phone Burner, except it can call up to 300 calls in an hour. That is absolutely insane. When I was 21 years old, I worked in a boiler room, and was usually one of the top callers every day. On my best 12-hour days, I was making 300 - 400 calls in a day. This ensures that you are not wasting any of your time dialing, and you are only talking to the people on your pre-loaded list.

I bet Chris Gardner would love to have had a dialer like this, because in the clip above he talks about having to do in six hours, what other people did in nine hours. He mentioned that to save time, he stopped hanging up the phone. He realized that by not hanging up the phone, he had another 8 minutes per day. Just imagine how much extra time he would have if, in addition to not hanging up the phone, he didn't have to listen to the phone ring, and was just automatically having conversations back-to-back-to-back. Add to this the ability to leave voice mails with the click of a mouse, as opposed to wasting 30 - 60 seconds leaving a voice mail for each person he called, and you have an extremely time efficient hustle.

In the Wolf of Wall Street clip above, Leo-channeling Jordan Belfort tells his army: Those phones on your desks are not going to dial themselves. Back in the day when Belfort was hittin' the market for $1,000,000 per week, that was certainly true. Today, it's a different story. If you use the tools mentioned above, the "little secret" is that the phones do indeed dial themselves.

Jordan likens to those black boxes, the "little hunks of plastic," to M-16' just waiting for a trained Marine to pull the trigger. If you are already a killer on the phone, like @ChasingPaper , then these tools can really turn you into a cold-blooded assassin. And if your skills on the phone need some work, then there is probably no better way to improve than by using these tools. At the end of the day, sales is a numbers game, and the more you put the numbers (number of dials, messages left, conversations had, etc), the more you put the power of numbers in your favor.

 

[tafy]

Yeah I'm in b2b2c

 

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[Oztrepreneur]

How did you guys find your B2B niches? Experience in the industry? I see 'needs / improvements' in my industry but not sure how to validate them, especially given potential conflict of interest.

 

[The Duc]

How did you guys find your B2B niches? Experience in the industry? I see 'needs / improvements' in my industry but not sure how to validate them, especially given potential conflict of interest.

In my case experience in the industry. Creates a nice barrier to entry as well.

You've got two ways you can go. If you're bringing a new product or service to the market of course you need to validate it. There's no reason to reinvent the wheel though, especially in B2B. Find someplace people are already making money, something businesses are already buying. Just find your USP And beat your competition.

It's a simple formula really. Most people just fail in the execution.

 

[tafy]

There's no reason to reinvent the wheel though, especially in B2B. Find someplace people are already making money, something businesses are already buying. Just find your USP And beat your competition.

Theres a tonn of B2B software that needs updating in nearly every niche, get out there and find it!

 

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[Oztrepreneur]

Theres a tonn of B2B software that needs updating in nearly every niche, get out there and find it!

Agreed, in my role I notice quite a few areas where the company is running with old spreadsheets etc. There would be a much better software solution for this that would standardise the way the company does things. It's oil and gas with multiple operating plants, but how do you validate that they would pay...

Anyway didn't mean to thread hijack

 

[tafy]

Imo its safer to stick to already existing software and make them much better. Then sell your version.

 

[Kevin Peter]

Am into cloud based B2B marketing. Feel free to discuss your queries.

 

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[Ubermensch]

I don't use PPC to get clients for myself if that's what you meant. That just comes naturally via word-of-mouth.

However, I do plan on using PPC to generate leads that I'll use to acquire businesses who'll buy the leads.

In my case experience in the industry. Creates a nice barrier to entry as well.

You've got two ways you can go. If you're bringing a new product or service to the market of course you need to validate it. There's no reason to reinvent the wheel though, especially in B2B. Find someplace people are already making money, something businesses are already buying. Just find your USP And beat your competition.

It's a simple formula really. Most people just fail in the execution.

Solid.

My experiences echoes yours, and reminds me of a few Robert Greene ideas.

One is the general idea that the truth is seen, not heard. You can talk and talk for days about the "vision" of your project, and how it will change your industry, perhaps even the world, but the impact is low, until people see it and feel it.

I paid $1500 to a former KEMA (now DNV) rep to prepare a case study for one of my more impressive clients. It was worth it, because it mathematically and empirically validates all of my claims: that the value of the commercial property went up by over $1,000,000 (you can tie this together with lowering Net Operating Income, combined with cap rates), that the owner put no money out of pocket, that the monthly financing payments to finance the lights are less than the monthly savings, that the utility cut them a fat a$$ check, and that they can take advantage of EPACT 2005 tax incentives - and, most importantly, that they moving forward with stage two of the project, which will be a total of $3,000,000.

Even still, all of that doesn't compare to having an actual video of my client, the head of property management, on video attesting to all of these facts.

Facts are facts and all the haters get smacked.

 

[Vigilante]

You.

You are much more focused.

Much more real.

We have always been cheering for you.

You seem less reliant on chemicals, and more reliant on yourself.

Real.

 

[LTL]

B2B is where it's at... They spend more and have more leverage

 

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[Ubermensch]

You.

You are much more focused.

Much more real.

We have always been cheering for you.

You seem less reliant on chemicals, and more reliant on yourself.

Real.

My insanely high levels of ambition are directly correlated to the physical and spiritual pain I've endured.

Chemicals, medicine, whatever you want to call it, do not fix the problem. Only action does (which sucks in the arduous development mode), and now I'm finally able to unleash myself on the market.

I know you have been cheering for me.

Goin' hard for the whole night, 'cause I ain't goin' back to my old life - I promise.

 

[Kevin Peter]

B2B data driven market is the right way to achieve goals. Resonating with the primary objective, dramatically driving the process combined with emerging digital communications give you more targeted approach and plan.

 

[Andy Black]

How did you guys find your B2B niches?

Search volumes (of consumers looking for the businesses) ...

www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/how-to-get-profitable-or-fail-fast-with-adwords.59147

 

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[healthstatus]

I want discussions on things like client meetings, payment terms, bad payers, negotiation, making offers, B2B marketing, converting over the phone, repeat business etc.

16 years in b2b, one face to face meeting with client everything else over phone or email, I don't work with clients not willing to pay 50% up front, you should know if they are a good/bad payer before you do business with them, my negotiation strategy is "here is my price, do you want it?", my marketing strategy is to try and be where they are when they start looking for the solution (IMO it is too hard to convince/educate people they have a problem they don't know they have), converting is converting, doesn't matter the manner or the media, and just like any other sales device, you get better results with testing, repeat business is awesome. That's all I got....

 

[Get Right]

I want discussions on things like client meetings, payment terms, bad payers, negotiation, making offers, B2B marketing, converting over the phone, repeat business etc.

Client Meetings - Figure out how your customer likes to be contacted. All are different. Phone is the best IMHO if no preference.

Payment Terms - Depends on amount but like @healthstatus said, some percentage up front the rest at closing/delivery/etc. (Think cowboy hand-off)

Bad Players - Calculate the percentage of bad players. I have a number. If less than 3%, I eat it and ignore it. Not worth my time.

Negotiation - I usually have 3 numbers in my head. What I want, what would be acceptable and what price I would walk out.

Making Offers - I make a lot

B2B Marketing - Word of mouth is the best. Figure out how to get to that point.

Converting over the phone - Figure out how to get those calls "incoming" and conversions will handle themselves.

Repeat Business - IS THE BEST New customers are expensive. Milk those existing customers.

 

[GuestUser113]

http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/turning-problems-into-profit

 

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[Get Right]

http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/turning-problems-into-profit

Nice article, tks.

 

[Andy Black]

^^^ Agreed.

Get out of the building.

Talk to people.

Those you think are competitors might be your biggest customers.