Sales Management and E-Marketing "B2B Term Paper

The B2B sales professional needs to
understand gaps in the competitive offerings of competitors to be able to
successfully position their own products with customers as well.
Often B2B selling professionals also spend an inordinate amount of time
building contacts within their own organizations as well, to build a
network of experts they can rely on to solve their customers' problems.
The ability to create an informal team that can assist in the developing of
quick, an accurate response to customers' inquires is also critical for
sales success. The subject matter experts of companies need to be treated
as a valued resource and consulted with frequently to stay on top of what
is happening with the latest product and service developments internally.

Finally there is the need to stay constantly on top of the latest trends
and developments within the company and also the industry to be of the
greatest value to customers. The role of the B2B sales professional is
more of being a trusted advisor and not at all being an order taker. Trust
is the currency that B2B selling runs on.

How has the advent of the internet and other technology complicated the
relationship between B2B buyers and sellers?

The Internet has made B2B buyers more aware than ever of substitute and
competitive products to the ones they are sourcing today. This forces
price inelasticity into products and markets, making it more difficult to
sell on price alone. The Internet then, by bringing greater knowledge to
the buyer, has tended to flatten price due to more substitutes being found,
and also create a high level of differentiation based on website presences
alone. The need for any company selling in a B2B distribution channel to
have a highly effective website cannot be over-emphasized.Websites today
are the calling cards of B2B companies to their buyers.
For the B2B sales professional it also forces a much higher level of
industry, product, and solution knowledge than has been true in the past.
The B2B sales professional must be very aware of the latest developments in
terms of products that may have just been introduced on the website during
any given week, be familiar with the direction and messaging of the
website, and also be very aware of each customer's website and messaging as
well. In short, the Internet has brought knowledge into the B2B selling
cycle as a differentiator, further supporting the concept of the B2B
selling professional needing to become a trusted advisor.

What changes do you anticipate in B2B selling over the next 10 years?
There is first going to be a much more thorough focus on measuring and
evaluating performance through the use analytics and web-based sales
performance measurement systems. This will bring a much higher level of
accountability and transparency for sales results. In addition, there is
going to be an entirely new approach to managing sales cycles, with a focus
on the long-term over simply trying to get transactions completed. This
long-term orientation will continue to support the idea of B2B sales
professionals being the trusted advisors of their customers. There is also
being to be a strong focus on how B2B sales professionals can be
increasingly independent in defining and implementing entire solution sets
for their customers, not just relying on products alone......