Are you selling a B2B SaaS product? Here are some helpful tips on the enterprise sales process from a buyer's perspective.Trade Shows / ConventionsTrade shows are events organized by industry groups or professional organizations. There are sessions where speakers give presentations to the audience. There is also usually an expo, where vendors display and talk about their products.Usually vendors gather contact info from potential clients who visit their booths. This leads to a follow up call soon after the trade show.Vendors often sponsor events outside of the trade shows for their clients. These can be breakfasts or dinners. These can even be meeting with individuals for coffee.I noticed that the trade show representatives of vendors are often not outside salespeople. Usually the vendor hands a prospective client off to a dedicated salesperson in a follow up call.Pro Tip: Something I've seen which was very effective is where a vendor is actually a presenter at the event. This can garner a lot more attention than simply having a booth.Regardless of the level of resources that a vendor commits to a trade show, showing up can be important. Consistently having a booth at key trade shows builds brand awareness and demonstrates a sense of reliability in the vendor.Educational WebinarsMany vendors will organize "educational" webinars. This is a webinar where a representative of the vendor talks about a topic of interest to their client base. Naturally there is some kind of connection to a product that the vendor sells.Registering to attend a webinar always requires filling out a web form with contact information. The vendor saves this information and makes a sales call to the attendee after the webinar.Usually vendors send emails for this sort of webinar at least once a month to contact lists of prospective clients. Often vendors will partner with professional or industry groups by getting that group to send out an announcement about the webinar.Pro Tip: Sometimes vendors will ask one of their current clients to co-host a webinar as a guest speaker. This lends a sense of authenticity to the content.ReferralsA surprising number of purchasing leads come from referrals. These can be from the staff of professional or industry groups. Referrals can also come from existing clients of a vendor.The most effective form of referrals often come from vendors of companion products/services. For example, a company may purchase an ERP system only to find that they need some tool or service that they didn't consider.Pro Tip: Vendors should foster a network of referral sources. This can be through incentives for referrals. It can also be through strategic partnerships.Cold CallsPeople often think of salespeople as making cold calls. This can come in many forms. Vendors will contact potential clients over the phone, in person, via LinkedIn, or sometimes by email.Vendors usually try to get an email address during their call. They will then send a follow up email with more information. This can also be an excuse for the vendor to obtain a customer's email address.Some vendors will literally mail a packet of information about their company or service. In my experience mailing a packet is not a very effective way to sell your product/service.Pro Tip: Cold calling is one of the least effective ways for vendors to sell their product. If you've spoken with a client three or more times and the client has shown no indication that they want to interact with you more then move on. Continuously calling a company won't convince them to buy your product.Trademarked BuzzwordsCompanies will sometimes create and trademark words or phrases to describe a type of product or business process. These words or phrases sound legitimate enough, but they are really a new label used to replace a generic term. These buzzwords and phrases then get used in marketing material, webinars, and presentations as a way to drive customer acquisition.This works as follows: The trademarked buzzwords get introduced to the marketplace through public speaking presentations, conventions, marketing emails, etc. If successful enough then potential customers start using the terms themselves. Because of keyword optimization, internet search results drive prospective clients to the vendor's website based on the buzzwords.Marketing MaterialEvery vendor has marketing material that explains their product / service. It is important that you understand both your competition and your product when you create this material. Your marketing material should emphasize features unique to your product.Pro Tip: Include trademarked buzzwords that you own in your marketing material. That way when prospective clients search the internet, they will find your website. WebsitesIt goes without saying that every company today needs a website (if not a mobile app). However there are some commonalities to websites which target enterprise / B2B customers.The website has to have the proper search engine optimization necessary for prospective customers to find it. That should include search optimization of the aforementioned trademarked buzzwords.The landing pages of the website should be interesting enough that the user wants to click to learn more. However, at that point the user should have to fill out a web form with their contact information. The goal of the website is not to give the user all of the information that they need to be satisfied. Instead the goal is to peak the prospective customer's curiosity enough that they give you the information to contact them.Pro Tip: A professional website is really important. If your website looks like it hasn't been upgraded since the 1990's then you will miss out on sales opportunities. Product DemosRegardless of how a vendor acquires a prospective customer, the next step always appears to be to schedule a demo of their product / service.Initial product demos are usually done over the internet. (This is not universally true, as demos are sometimes given in person.) There are dozens of screen sharing applications that are used for this. Popular tools include GoToMeeting and Join.Me.Vendors usually have 1 to 3 people on the call. There is usually one product specialist who drives the presentation. There is often an outside salesperson. Sometimes there can be a third person, who mostly just listens to their company's own presentation.The presentation usually consists of a PowerPoint style pitch deck in combination with a live product demo. Usually the vendor ends the demo trying to get a commitment from the prospective customer for a future action.Pro Tip: Don't show every boring aspect of your product. Do however show what makes your product unique and explain why that should be important to the customer. Formal ProposalsFor important or large dollar purchases, clients will often initiate a formal Request For Proposal (RFP) process. This involves the client sending a request to many vendors of a product/service. Each vendor then submits a quote and proposal to meet the request.The vendor usually has a chance to ask clarifying questions. Direct your questions to clarify any ambiguous language or options.Only submit one proposal. Do not try to provide a bunch of different options at different pricing. Purchasers don't have time to read through many proposals from one company and may reject them for that. Instead clarify exactly what the customer is looking for in the question and answer stage.Do send people in person to the final demo of your product. This can give an impression that your company will be a reliable partner and will be present to support the product if something goes wrong.Having an executive from the vendor on the phone during a final presentation can instill confidence in the customer. However don't let the executive drive the presentation, because executives usually not as good as presenting and selling the product as they think they are.Pro Tip: If the vendor sends the invite for the product demonstration, then that is an opportunity for the vendor to capture decision maker contacts. Successful salespeople sense when a decision is imminent and follow up with a prospective client's decision makers at the right time.GiftsVendors will often send gifts to clients. This is overwhelmingly in the form of food. I've seen vendors send candy, cupcakes, cakes, fruit baskets, and pie. Sometimes vendors will send knick knacks or decorative objects with their branding on them. Less often vendors actually send personal objects or gift cards.Usually gifts are sent after a product purchase/implementation. Vendors regularly send gifts to their customers during the holidays. Vendors will also send clients gifts as a way to say thank you for doing things like acting as a reference.Pro Tip: Choose gifts that can easily be distributed to an entire group of people, as opposed to something which only one person can use/consume. Clients like to distribute these gifts to department members or project team members. Finding a way to add your branding will help build a positive association of your product in the minds of the recipients. Customer FeedbackSuccessful companies obsess over customer feedback. They ask customers to take surveys. They schedule status calls after product launches. They understand that the customer's impression of a product is not the same as the vendor's impression of its product.This feedback allows a vendor to fine tune their product / services. It also allows the vendor to improve their sales process and customer service.Pro Tip: Ask for feedback when you lose a sale to a competitor. This is your opportunity to learn what went wrong and improve your chances with the next customer.For more articles like this, check out my blog at: http://www.mattnutsch.com/blog
