selling b2b in 2024

My 2nd customer ever came via an elevator pitch.

I was on-premise at my 1st client (Pozible) and this guy carrying a fruit box was in the lift.

I asked him what he did.

I said: “That’s great - I’ll look you up - I help startups with digital marketing”.

Morgan: “That would be great!”

And we parted ways in the lifts.

You bet I followed up.

And you can bet I landed YourGrocer as my 2nd client.

I don’t have the original email, because my old business was “hackdigital.net”

(I know).

But I did accidentally turn off Morgan’s remarketing years later when the account deprecated and he never updated management of his remarketing tags…

Selling to smaller B2Bs is a bit easier today - so here’s a crash course on doing it effectively with your early customers.

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1. Email follow-up to first customers upon sale and/or delivery

Make sure you hit these notes in your own voice:

- We appreciate your business a lot
- We’re a new business that wants to do more of this kind of work
- Let us know if there’s similar businesses you know that could benefit from this

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2. Connect with existing customers on LinkedIn - personalised note thanking them again and staying in touch

You’re going to get an accept and if you post regularly you stay top-of-mind for them

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3. Posting about a customer problem you solved on LinkedIn - once a week - thank people for engaging with the post, connect with any new connections and ask them what they’re working on

• If you’re stuck - just look at your meetings from last week, recall a conversation you had with a client in a meeting, and turn it into a story
• Even if your story is shit - you’ll get better at doing this over time if you do it each week

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4. Audit the companies you’ve helped

You’re looking for factors like this:

- What employee headcount are they
- What industry?
- What locality?
- Who were your champions in that business and what was their job title? -
- Who were the decision makers in that business and what was their job title?

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5. Sign-up for LinkedIn Sales Navigator (trial it first if you can to help cashflow)

Now look for -

- Companies matching your previous customers
- if you click on an account in Sales Nav in search (the three dots)
- you can tell it to “Find Similar” like a Spotify song
- Job titles matching your previous customers (champions)
- Job titles matching your previous decision makers

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6. Send 10-20 connection requests to these similar people per day

If its someone I know I will personalise the connection request (or if someone told me to reach out to them) - otherwise just send the connect as most people accept these days

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7. Thank new connections for connecting, state you solved X for Y (similar company - don’t name them unless they’re happy being a case study). And ask if they want more info

It’s a yes or no question!

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8. Send more info in the form of:

Lead magnets such as:

- One-sheeter as an anonymised case study
- Screen recording of your solution and how it helped solve problem
- Checklist of what you worked through
- Capability statement and how it solved for X

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9. Follow-up and ask if this is a problem for them - if not (dig for more info about how they think about it) and if so - ask if they’d like it solved

This is the more “salesy” part of sales - when you get a rejection pressing for more info - it’s a great habit to build but takes effort

This is a time consuming process, likely outside of your comfort zone, and it works.

Founders that thrive get this intuitively.

Founders that lose sight of this end up creating a bloated and over-hyped technology company that’s doomed to fail.

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This note was just as much for myself as you, dear reader!

It’s been a quiet few months and I’m hustling very hard now.

I can blame the market, my referrals running dry, or the fact Georgie and I spent the six months without much sleep - but the reality is there are things I can focus on inside my control.

1) Doing the reps
2) Sounding out temp contracts
3) Enjoying the process

A bit longer this one - but please keep the feedback coming!

-Marshy

p.s. I know not every reader sells B2B - but if you read over this process again - it can absolutely be rejigged for the job hunt as well - you're welcome.

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