Every sale is challenging in its own way, but selling into an enterprise, the golden egg for B2B organizations, can be especially difficult to navigate. These customers bring in significantly more revenue, but the buyer journey and experience have their own nuances.
Enterprise-level organizations have hundreds or even thousands of employees, several office locations globally, bring in billions of dollars every year, and may have been around for decades. Therefore, the way they think about investing in business solutions is far different than a smaller or startup business.
In this blog, we discuss the importance of scalability for enterprise organizations, and how to develop a sales process to build a buyer experience that resonates and ultimately turns into revenue.
What is enterprise sales? While the enterprise sales definition isn’t clear cut, it’s widely understood that selling to large organizations is far more complex and requires a group effort to offer the best solutions.
Selling an enterprise solution that scales
The bigger the company, the more gatekeepers reps have to go through to reach key stakeholders and decision makers throughout the sales process. It can take months or even years to complete an enterprise sales cycle. Additionally, such organizations rarely buy brand new solutions; they expect vendors and sellers to develop a product or platform that will work within their existing systems and operations.
Throughout an enterprise company’s lifetime, they might go through a number of evolutions, such as acquiring or merging with other companies, launching new products, and rebranding. As these evolutions occur, expectations and needs change, but executives expect that their business solution vendors will grow with them and continue supporting their needs.
With these sophisticated needs and expectations in mind, sales representatives must go into enterprise interactions fully prepared with the knowledge and tools necessary to articulate the value of their product for scaling businesses. The canned elevator pitch won’t work with these buyers; reps must address the organization’s specific situation and how their solution will ease their pain points－both present and future.
Sales representatives can’t address those pain points if they don’t know what they are, so an enterprise sales strategy must start with researching and communicating with stakeholders to get a full picture of the business’ needs and vision of the future.
Once sales reps have gained an understanding of the customer, they need to work backward to develop a comprehensive solution that fits their needs. This requires a detailed knowledge of the solution they are selling and its various features and capabilities, so they can then communicate their solution in terms of specific capabilities as they pertain to growth and volume across the organization. Taking on the buyer’s view of timing allows sales representatives to show their commitment for the long haul and positions themselves as a trustworthy partner that will support the enterprise as it scales.
Sellers and sales managers must understand that this process may take months, or even years, to close the deal, which means maintaining ongoing communication to stay updated on any changes and ensure their solution continues to meet client needs.
Addressing the challenge of scalability when selling to enterprise customers starts with communication and understanding their unique wants and requirements. The more you can directly relate your product to their specific use case, the more effective you’ll be in buyer conversations. Implement an enterprise sales solution that supports your efforts and provides the training and preparation sellers need.
Looking to ensure your sales reps are prepared for enterprise-level buyer conversations? Discover how sales certifications standardize best practices and hold reps accountable for knowledge and skill requirements in our “Sales Certification Best Practices” eBook.
