Tips on winning B2B contracts

[Philip J. Fry]

Hey, I do business with a company who courts other companies for about 1 or 2 years before they sign the contract. This other guy I know says it's like 6 months. I signed a B2B contract with another company this year and it took about 3 months. What did it was that I showed him his competitors are fully recovered from COVID and he was behind. I'm working on a new lead right now and I have the feeling that this guy wants me to wine and dine him before he signs anything. He's cheap and hates to spend money and knows that his contract is worth a lot of money to me. For me, I don't want to spend money and I'm uncomfortable with this as I never took a potential client out before. But I'll give him a call this week and ask him if he wants to go to lunch. There's a few nice business lunches in his side of town. We can get to know each other more then and I can lay back on the sale stuff. Seems like he is more interested in the connection than the operations and results and profits.

Anyone else have any tips on winning B2B contracts? A friend of mine calls this the favour economy.

 

[eliquid]

You gonna have to spend money.

Everyone has $19 in their pocket to buy that weight loss pill off Facebook, sight unseen and not caring about your reputation.

But you want me to fork over possibly $100k over the next 12 months? $30k even.

Yeah, you gonna have to build trust and earn that reputation. It's gonna take 7 touchpoints for me to even get to know you, before I even start to pull out my wallet for consideration.

It's no different than anything else.

No one is going to hand over a ton of money before you show them a little something something.

Why would they?

 

[Philip J. Fry]

You gonna have to spend money.

Everyone has $19 in their pocket to buy that weight loss pill off Facebook, sight unseen and not caring about your reputation.

But you want me to fork over possibly $100k over the next 12 months? $30k even.

Yeah, you gonna have to build trust and earn that reputation. It's gonna take 7 touchpoints for me to even get to know you, before I even start to pull out my wallet for consideration.

It's no different than anything else.

No one is going to hand over a ton of money before you show them a little something something.

Why would they?

Yeah, signing a 12 month contract for $100,000 is going to take trust and it's more than a CV and a reputation and confidence.

My B2B guy who signed large companies says this: "wining and dining is useless and don't do that. Just know their due processes and decision makers and listen to them on what they need and how you can solve the problem for them. Most people will tell you what you need and how you can help them. It's key to get the decision makers on board and talk to them and not their subordinates."

So, yeah, listen, learn what problems they have, and figure out how you can solve those problems for them as well as what you need to do to be able to help them. For example, if XYZ Inc requires vendors to be ISO certified, get ISO certified. If you need to meet some security level to get the contract, encrypt your Databases and add HTTPS and whatever else to meet that security level so you are eligible for the contract.

I totally get this as I worked in the Government. Government contracts needs to meet certain requirements to receive the contract. Your job and about 80% of the work, is meeting those requirements. Once you do, you're eligible for MANY different contracts.

He told me to call the guy up and asks what's preventing him from signing and then listen. He recommended sales books too but I've read many. Practice is what I need and this is hard as it's for real with real results. It's a little bit stressful!

 

[Philip J. Fry]

Ok. This was what I did. One guy said last Thursday on a zoom call that he'll talk to the board on Friday and get back to me. By Tuesday I had no word and invited him lunch. No reply on Thursday. His office's address is on his site so I did the creepy and invasive thing by just going to his office on the other side of town. I got there, pissed in the restaurant's next door bathroom and ask for info about him like a cop, and they said they don't know him. I go into this office anxious as fuck and talk to two of his employees. They said he was on a trip. I walked away in shame and anger.

... Then I did a U-turn and talked to the employees. One was a sales manger and we connected on what operation needs to be run to get qualified leads. The other was a project manager. I found out that even his employees have a hard time getting a hold of him. He's super busy. I left a hand written letter on his desk. He has to eat. Lunch with him would be good. Then, it'll be me finding out how I can help him and take stuff off of his plate as well as increase his revenue.

So, the key takeaway here is that you can totally show up to the guy's office in person to gather information on him to learn more about him and his business and needs. We did that in the Jehovah's Witnesses. If we see kids toys on your lawn, we're gonna change our pitch to family and kids to get you to change your religion. Same thing here. Those 4 or 5 years going door to door were shit but was good for cold-approach sales experience at a young age. You can also ask if they'd be interested in you returning in a week to catch up on the sales talk No need to bring Watchtowers but it creates a relationship and you'll get a sale in a few weeks