Many B2B companies miss important opportunities

6 min read

Apr 29, 2024 1:36:45 PM

Certainly B2B companies that interface with IT/Saas now start from the customer and the Internet, but it is still incredible how many B2B companies miss opportunities in the commercial digital arena. It's pretty much like the video below. You don't start seeing it until you realize it.

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In one of my older blogs I already referred to a video from NOS current affairs program NOVA from 1999. In that program, a number of trend watchers, such as Vincent Evers and Ben Tiggelaar (who also knows everything about everything), commented on how large Dutch retailers reacted to the rise of the Internet. The main conclusion of the trendwatchers: Hello, wake up!

Of course, we as BV Netherlands have already made a big impact. Certainly B2B companies that interface with IT/Saas now start from the customer and the Internet, but it is still incredible how many B2B companies miss opportunities in the commercial digital field. It's pretty much like the video below. You're not going to see it until you see it through.

Leverage the potential

I think 95% of the people we saw in the video have a smartphone today and can't live without it. They didn't see then what enormous potential such a cell phone can unlock. They were mainly reasoning from what they knew and not what else might emerge.

And that is exactly what is going on in the commercial process in B2B. Learn to look forward and then you will see, feel and experience that there is huge potential ahead for B2B companies that take digitization of commerce seriously.

Do you follow or set the tone

In the Netherlands (but really everywhere) people are often very quick to look at the heroes of a particular industry. Whether that is Ryanair in aviation, Amazon and Coolblue in retail, Take Away in the food industry, Netflix in entertainment, Booking in travel or Tesla in automotive, the message is often: really well seen and clever!!! And of course it is, but what could you learn from these kinds of disruptive companies? That should really be the question!

If I had to answer that question, it basically comes down to the fact that these companies have been extremely good at organizing their commercial process and scaling up using the Internet. Without the Internet, they would never have gotten this far.

Marketing is a business asset

In quite a few of our articles, we have already explained that today, more than ever, marketing should be a main, not an afterthought. But also that marketing is a business asset, with associated IT systems and tools so that it can be rationalized as a profit center. To make good choices in this, however, you obviously need to have visibility.

And that is quite a tricky one. Especially just looking at the large amount of IT/SaaS systems and tooling available to properly shape your marketing tech stack. But if you make the right choices and start from clear business objectives, then ROI is achievable, just like the heroes mentioned above.

Sales is much more than people work

It is just like many sports. With the scientific insights and lessons learned over the past 25 years, records are still being broken today. We keep going faster, higher, farther. You sometimes hear many an athlete say that in the past they were just doing whatever and if they had applied the knowledge of today, then, they would have come first much more often. Think of better materials such as a carbon bike, better nutrition, training schedules, altitude training, cold baths, medical supervision, etcetera according to eternal second Joop Zoetemelk.

And so it is with sales. You can still be an excellent salesman and visit many customers, but so much tooling has become available in the online landscape that you can significantly increase your scoring chances even before you hit the road. Think of your website as a lead magnet, visible authority in your niche across all online channels, information about your prospects, insight into the DMU, e-commerce platforms and so on. If you want to go faster, higher, further as sales, you do need to grab the new business opportunities online.

Customer service as a business model

Complaining customers are a boon to your business. You get that, but often it doesn't feel that way. That's because you haven't set up a good process on how to deal with them. It disrupts your ongoing processes and, as a result, all these incidents cost you a lot of time and effort. That is of course a pity, because certainly in B2B - where you have far fewer customers in numbers than in B2C - you need to cherish your customers more than ever (provided there is a really good fit).

If you do that, customer service can become a profit center just like marketing (especially in the medium and longer term). Second, well-designed customer service also brings in money directly. You have to know what your customers are complaining about and how to solve them. And that doesn't all have to be under warranty, because good service comes at a price.

What changes in the Pricing model?

HubSpot introduces several key features:

Core Seat: Introducing a new seat type, the Core Seat, which provides edit access to purchased Hubs and HubSpot's Smart CRM.

No Seat Minimums: Customers can now purchase Sales and Service Hubs without any seat minimums, allowing them to buy what they need, when they need it.

Per-User Model: Implementing a per-user model with a single seat type for Starter, known as the Core Seat.

Unlimited View-Only Seats: Paid portal users who don't require edit access in HubSpot can now enjoy unlimited view-only seats.

Free Tools: Limiting the number of edit users for Free Tools to a maximum of five.