Unique Challenges of Business-to-Business Service Providers: Part 5

In the last part of this series looking at the unique challenges of business-to-business service providers, we shall look at the challenge of conveying compelling sales propositions. How can we build the perception of real value and ideally move away from price?

Perhaps a good way of looking at this is by way of an example. Take for instance computer training. This is often seen as a cost for companies, not only of the training courses themselves, but the cost of people being away from work, not producing, while they are being trained.

What does the average computer training company do? Well, first of all they probably mail their training literature to the Personnel or IT departments and tell them what their employees will learn on their programmes – how to lay out documents, use spreadsheet and databases – all for the cost of £x.

Contrast this approach with that of targeting Sales Directors and letting them know for instance how much your database training will improve their sales, helping them maximise the information they have on their customers and prospects and showing them how this extremely useful information can be targeted and efficiently converted into highly effective promotional campaigns/mail shots, etc. Would they be interested in hearing more?

And if you could back this up with facts on how you have been able to actually increase clients’ sales and provide client testimonials on how individual companies have benefited, how much more would they be interested in using your services?

The key is to focus on what your service can do for them, how much it will save them and increase their efficiencies and/or profit, not on what it is or what you do.