The B2B SaaS Marketing Blog

The Nine Laws Of Inbound Sales Success

by 

Dorian Travers

Last updated: January 29th, 2014

There has recently been a notable shift in best practice for B2B sales. Inbound selling is meant to appeal to the upcoming generation of buyers. Listed below are nine rules for successful inbound sales.

1. Be Empathetic to Buyers

Practicing empathy for buyers is not a cliché sales gimmick. Provide buyers with a highly personalized experience during the purchasing process. Speak with buyers instead of delivering a sales pitch. Respect your buyer by putting yourself in his or her shoes. Understand the challenges that your buyer faces and provide plausible solutions. Display empathy rather than high-pressure sales tactics.

2. Be Ready to Walk Away from Bad Prospects

Forcing sales is contradictory to the concept of inbound sales, and can have lasting damage on the wrong buyer. In one common scenario, you might incur a lengthy sales cycle and waste time for your company and your buyers. In another common scenario, you might diminish positive public perception of your brand due to buyers that are unhappy with their purchase.

3. Make it Easy for Customers to Close Deals

Keep correspondence with prospects short, sweet, and to the point. Make your product or service easy for your customer to understand, and resist the urge to contact potential clients during busy hours. Cut out all unnecessary content and leave your customer with a straightforward value proposition. Let your customer initiate next steps.

4. Learn How to Listen to Your Customers

Inbound sellers know how to listen to buyer challenges and concerns in order to adequately address them. Active listening is a core part of empathy, in addition to a core feature of inbound selling.

5. Be an Expert and Add Value

An expert will add value throughout the phases of the sales cycle. Give something more than a rote sales pitch to buyers. Use your expert industry knowledge to provide additional information about best practices and provide realistic solutions.

6. Always Conduct Prospect Research

Know the immediate solutions to plausible buyer concerns before they are presented. Research your buyer by reading their social media profiles, understanding their company mission statement, and identifying their strategic objectives. Staying aware of the buyer’s needs shows the buyer you care.

7. Build Rapport with Customers

Inbound sales are largely based on building interpersonal relationships with buyers. Engage in rapport building with buyers in order to add a personal touch throughout the entire sales cycle. Give your buyers a positive experience with your company via a joke or kind gesture. Building a strong rapport with clients can prove rewarding in the long run.

8. Learn to Be an Exceptional Copywriter

Inbound sales people often write more than many other tasks. It is important to be clear and concise when writing. Sharpen your writing skills in order to clearly communicate by reading and writing daily outside of work.

9. Have Timing and Tact

Your actions should be based on buyer behavior. Understanding your prospects will assist in connecting with the buyers at the right time and in the right way. Use a free tool to further track buyer behavior such as Signals, which tells you when a person has opened a sent email. This tool can indicate how important you are to the buyer.

Inbound selling can allow you to connect with buyers on a deeper and more meaningful level. Earn loyalty and build trust in order to turn buyers into dedicated customers.