August 14, 2025
Do you feel like selling in your business-to-business industry is getting more difficult every day?
You’re probably right. Here’s how to meet the challenge.
Selling business to business has never been easy, but there is evidence that over the past ten years it has become harder and harder. If you are in the trenches selling or helping to sell, you
can see this happening on a daily basis. Here are a few of the signs, causes, and solutions.
Why Is B2B Selling Even More Difficult?
How Can You Navigate a More Difficult Marketplace?
The best salespeople are not held back by a more challenging business environment. In fact, their skills and business development processes, such a challenging marketplace can become a competitive advantage. The top producers, the 20 percent who bring in 80 percent of new business aren’t slowed down by a difficult conditions. Here’s what helps them:
But knowing is not doing. The points listed above won’t turn a less productive seller to a top producer. That takes training to build the skills and it takes time to develop custom sales processes.
Here is an example that combines actual aspects from several clients blended into one illustration.
When we met this prospect they were having little success selling to individuals. Our first suggestion was for our new client to ask prospect companies to see if they would allow him to educate their employees on specific aspects of his product: individual financial management. The presentations—and teaching—would cover saving, investing, budgeting, and retirement planning. We helped our client build the skills and the behaviors to communicate the value of our client’s prospect company of having a more educated workforce. The education sessions overcame the problem of buyers having little time to give a seller. But we helped our client do
more than educate. And this point is critical: We helped our client learn not only how to educate but also how to persuade. This approach also helped build the seller’s brand because he was now positioned as an educator, not a seller. Over time the seller developed a rule of thumb for how many clients would result from an educational session.
In complex sales a seller must use “the three persuasions”:
In our illustration above think about how all three of the required persuasions are addressed. The educational session creates value by helping prospects better understand the risks and challenges they are facing financially. The attendees will also come to realize, if they don’t already, that in no way can they address this problem by themselves. Not all attendees will take action to buy the product or service. But among those that do a percentage will select the
vendor putting on the program. In other words, by the end of the educational program they will see the seller as a consultant (in effect, an expert) who can provide true value This simplified
example shows what’s possible by applying the
right skills with the right—customized—sales process. The fun part is that a prospect-centric approach can build value within the sales process. When that happens, navigating a more and more difficult selling environment becomes easier—and more productive.
To learn more about how we have educated hundreds of salespeople in how to create value within the sales process, please get in touch with us at 847-446-0008 Ext. 1 or email me at pkrone@productivestrategies.com. We’d love to learn more about your company, your products and services, and you.
Even more practical, productive sales and marketing ideas and advice can be found in Phil’s new book:
B2B Selling by Phil Krone Available on Amazon.
