It’s tempting to stick to what we’re used to or say “Well, we’ve always done things this way.”
But without taking full control of your B2B sales process and being open to improving it, you’d continue to miss out on leads, purchases, and money.
So, let’s go through the best tactics to optimise your funnel so you can take more people from strangers to paying customers.
Why is it vital to review your B2B sales process regularly?
Because, if you don’t, you’d be relying on assumptions… and that’s a risky game in business!
Instead, when you review your B2B sales process steps and your key metrics regularly, you can get clear on:
- How your leads are engaging with each stage of your funnel
- How their preferences and behaviours evolve over time
- Where most of them are exiting your funnel
And once you know all this? You get to improve your B2B sales process accordingly, saving time and boosting your revenue.
13 ways to improve your B2B sales process and maximise conversions
For the very best results, optimise every stage of your sales process (psst! ScoreApp, our quiz-building platform, can help across your entire funnel).
1. Understand your ideal customer profile
You might think it’s a given, but before you skip this step, ask yourself: do you really know who you’re selling to… or are you trying to target “everyone” through a generic Ideal Customer Profile?
Unfortunately, if you’re using surface-level or outdated ICP insights, your marketing will be too vague to resonate with the right people and compel them to take action.
How to improve it
- Conduct some market research – For example, who are you actually selling to? What’s their role and company size? What are their biggest challenges, goals, likes, and dislikes? If you haven’t got these answers, uncover them with a ScoreApp quiz
- Segment your leads – Do you sell to two (or more) ICPs, like solopreneurs and small business owners with a team? Or maybe some of them have different problems and priorities? Then, make your marketing more targeted by dividing your leads into groups based on their demographics, preferences, or behaviours. A ScoreApp quiz lead magnet will do this automatically based on their answers
- Update your ICP – Your strategy shouldn’t be set in stone. For example, after onboarding or offboarding a new client, you could send them a different ScoreApp quiz for feedback, finding out what they liked and disliked about their experience, what results they valued the most, and so on. Then, perfect your ICP accordingly, and use that data in your marketing
2. Map out your sales funnel
Not everyone discovers your brand and eventually buys from you in the same way or within the same timeframe.
So, if you leave all this to chance, you’ll continue to rely on guesswork, missing out on sales.
Instead, understand how your leads move from awareness to interest, consideration, intent, and decision, and take full control of that journey.
How to improve it
- Plan your sales funnel – Review how, so far, people have been going from strangers to paying customers, and map out your ideal path (for example, with ScoreApp, you can create a full quiz funnel that keeps attracting your ideal customers, collecting insights, nurturing these leads, and selling to them… all automatically!)
- Set the right goals – Choose some key metrics for each stage of your funnel, so that you can monitor its success (for example, at the beginning, you’ll want to focus more on views and impressions, whereas once your leads start moving down your funnel, conversions will matter more)
- Make your funnel as smooth and effective as possible – Create relevant content for each phase (like educational blog posts for the top, comparison articles for the middle, and case studies for the bottom). Also, make it a breeze for your leads to move to the following stage, using clear next steps and calls to action. With ScoreApp, you can send the right content and instructions to each lead based on their quiz answers
3. Qualify your leads effectively
With leads, the more isn’t always the better!
If you try to nurture and get on calls with EVERYONE, you’re going to keep wasting a tonne of time, energy, and money speaking to wrong-fit or uncommitted prospects.
That’s why you should qualify your leads before talking to them.
How to improve it
- Pre-qualify your leads as early as possible – What do your perfect-fit clients have in common? Who do you NOT wish to work with? To speak with more of the former and less of the latter, pre-qualify your leads with a ScoreApp quiz. You’ll literally get to ask them tactical questions to find out whether or not they’d be a good fit, like “What’s your budget for a new website?”
- Nurture them strategically – Maybe some leads could be a good fit but they first need to implement something, let go of a misconception, or reframe their concerns? Then, instead of wasting your sales team’s time, let your automated email sequences take care of it. When you start with a ScoreApp quiz lead magnet, you can personalise them, making these emails even more relevant and valuable to each contact (more on that soon!)
- Optimise your sales team’s time – To maximise their chances of success, they should only get on calls with right-fit prospects who have already been nurtured. Give them access to the right data and resources too, like your CRM and each lead’s ScoreApp quiz answers
4. Implement sales enablement tools and content
Traditionally, salespeople deal with their prospects’ concerns and objections during the call itself. If you’re serious about streamlining your B2B sales process, though, it’s too late by then!
So, use your marketing, content, and automation to prime your leads for that upcoming sale.
How to improve it
- Create sales-enablement content – Why did some of your prospects NOT become clients? What objections and concerns got in the way? If your sales team lets your marketers know, the latter can create content to tackle them, such as videos and blog posts. Sales-enablement content can also include demos showcasing the value of your products, case studies of how you helped past customers, and so on. Then, start sharing this content in your marketing (like your website and social media) and, most importantly, in your automated nurturing sequences
- Share it with your sales team, too – Sales-enablement content is not just for your marketers! Your sales team should always be able to access it, using and referencing the most relevant resources during calls and follow-ups (and closing more sales!)
- Keep updating your content and data – Did your marketing team create new resources or collect more data (like a lead’s ScoreApp quiz answers)? Then, your salespeople should get access to it. Did the latter uncover new objections? They should share them with your marketers so they can update your sales-enablement content and pitch decks accordingly. So, create a strong feedback loop between the two teams (we’ll cover that soon)
5. Personalise your marketing
Your target customers already see a TONNE of marketing messages, campaigns, and content, especially in the B2B space.
If you want them to listen to what you are saying, you must make it relevant to them.
No wonder personalising your communication and touchpoints leads to a juicy 20% increase in sales.
How to improve it
- Understand each lead’s situation – Don’t force the same messaging and offers onto everyone! Find out what each lead values the most, what they’re struggling with, and what their unique situation feels like. Your ScoreApp quiz questions can do all this automatically (for example, by asking them “If you had a magic wand, which of these problems would you get rid of first?”) and add those insights to your CRM and email marketing platform
- Personalise your marketing – Set up different nurturing sequences for each segment, or tweak certain elements (like your email subject lines and the sales-enablement content you included) to really match their situation. Then, make the right offer to each lead, whether that’s by recommending the perfect product or by inviting them on a call with a tailored message. Luckily, you can do all this automatically based on each lead’s ScoreApp answers!
- Share this data with your sales team – Give them access to it (for example, to each lead’s ScoreApp quiz results) so that, instead of starting from scratch or sending the same impersonal message to everyone, they can tailor their touchpoints and follow-ups to each prospect’s situation
6. Shorten your B2B sales cycle
B2B sales cycles are longer than B2C and take +100 days on average.
As well as requiring plenty of resources, this means it’s easier to lose potential customers along the way.
So, aim to shorten and simplify your funnel.
How to improve it
- Use automation – This will save time for you and/or your team, bypass human error (for example, when following up), and avoid long waiting times for your prospects (we’ll cover automation soon!)
- Use content strategically – The sales-enablement content we talked about before (from blog posts debunking common misconceptions to case studies and ROI calculators) will also help you shorten your B2B sales cycle. Why? Because it’ll make it a no-brainer for your prospects to take action. Bonus points if you send the most relevant content pieces to each of them (for example, based on the problems, goals, and misconceptions uncovered through your ScoreApp quiz)
- Include clear calls to action – Don’t assume that, just because the next steps are obvious to you, your leads will figure them out automatically. Tell them exactly what you want them to do and how this will benefit them (like scheduling a demo to find out how your SaaS can save them 10h a week)
- Use urgency – Inspire FOMO to give your prospects a reason to take action NOW (we’ll share some examples of urgency soon)
7. Encourage collaboration between marketing and sales
We teased this before because… it literally affects every stage of your marketing and sales funnel!
If you keep treating them as two completely separate departments? You’ll miss out on opportunities, frustrate your leads with inconsistent communication, and lose more of them along the way.
How to improve it
- Give both teams access to the same tools – Your CRM, email marketing platform, ScoreApp quiz answers… For each prospect, your sales team should be able to see the notes and data collected by your marketers. That way, no matter who picks it up and when, they’ll always know what to lead with, avoiding repetitions, inconsistencies, or irrelevant messages
- Encourage continuous communication – Both teams should work towards the same KPIs and goals and stay in touch. So, for example, you could create a feedback loop, use team communication apps, and schedule regular alignment meetings
8. Build relationships
As seen before, B2B has longer sales cycles, and in most cases, multiple stakeholders with different priorities.
So, unfortunately, you can’t expect your leads to find out about you and then hop on a call the next day.
You must create a system to keep in touch and stay top of mind while inspiring connection and trust. That way, once they’re ready to take action, YOU will be the only name that comes to mind.
How to improve it
- Build a relationship throughout your B2B sales funnel – Once you’ve captured someone’s contact details, keep targeting them with personalised email sequences (for example, tailored to their ScoreApp quiz results). You could talk about their biggest problem, tell them why you care about solving it, include sales-enablement content to tackle their misconceptions, and share case studies or narrative-based emails to show them how you helped clients who used to be in their shoes
- Show them you care – When you send the same generic offer to everyone or try to get them on a call too soon, you’re basically telling them “I want to sell to you no matter what.” Instead, your ScoreApp quiz, email sequences, and touchpoints can show your leads that you’re first trying to understand their unique situation, only recommending the best option for them
- Maintain a human approach – Don’t be a faceless company with interchangeable team members! Ensure your prospects always know who they’re talking to and are guaranteed a smooth transition from marketing to sales (for example, your marketers could tell them: “My colleague John will be in touch to schedule a demo with you and discuss [their biggest problem]”)
9. Review your data, analytics, and feedback
To improve your B2B sales process, you can’t keep relying on guesswork.
Sure, with the right strategy, you’ll put strong foundations in place. To fix the problems within your funnel and maximise its opportunities, though, you must review it regularly to understand how your leads are moving through it.
How to improve it
- Identify your KPIs – Choose some key metrics to measure the effectiveness of your lead generation, nurturing stages, and sales. What are your ideal numbers and results? This will keep you on track and show you what to aim for
- Run some A/B testing – Show different versions of the same element (like your quiz landing page or a specific email) to different people. What got you the most engagement and clicks?
- Review your analytics – Get in the habit of doing this regularly to see how your leads interact with different parts of your funnel and how their behaviour evolves (for example, are they following the path you planned? Where do you lose most of them? Which email sequences are more popular?). Then, optimise it accordingly to maximise your conversions. With ScoreApp, you get robust but easy-to-understand reporting features
- Get direct feedback from your customers – Once someone has reached the bottom of your funnel and bought from you, ASK THEM about their experience. For example, what did they enjoy the most? Is there anything you could have done differently to simplify their journey? (You can do this with a separate ScoreApp quiz for feedback)
10. Set your sales team up for success
Your marketing should bring you more eyeballs and leads. But if they don’t convert into paying customers… it’ll all be for nothing!
Of course, that’s the job of your sales team, but you can—and should—make things easier for them.
How to improve it
- Invest in your salespeople – Upskill them and keep them motivated through workshops, courses, talks, training on new tools and… whatever would be most relevant for your type of business!
- Offer them the right tools and resources – As seen before, your sales team should always have access to the sales-enablement content created by your marketers and all the data you have on a prospect. That way, when they finally talk to them, they won’t be guessing or starting from scratch
11. Automate repetitive tasks
To improve and streamline your B2B sales process, you can’t do everything manually.
Otherwise, you could incur human error, waste your team’s time, and keep your prospects waiting, causing them to lose interest.
How to improve it
- Implement marketing automation – Identify your most time-consuming and repeatable tasks, and start automating them (for example, scheduling social media content or sending your emails at a certain time). With ScoreApp, you can automate your entire funnel! As soon as someone completes your quiz, they’ll be added to your CRM and email marketing platform, and they’ll start receiving your nurturing sequence until it’s time to make them the right offer
- Automate some tasks for your sales team – For example, you could implement a system to automate follow-ups so that your salespeople don’t run the risk of forgetting (and no prospect slips through the cracks)
12. Create urgency in your sales process
Because B2B sales cycles are longer, it’s even more important to create some FOMO, giving your prospects a reason to take action right now.
If they wait? They could miss out on their juicy bonus, discount, or your availability.
How to improve it
- Create time-limited offers and incentives – Consider early-bird discounts, exclusive bonuses, a maximum of five 1:1 sessions per month, and incentives that are only available within specific timeframes. With ScoreApp, you can do this in a way that feels more relevant to each lead. For example, if the quiz uncovered a problem that can be solved through your online course, you could send them some nurturing emails and then one along the lines of “If you invest in this course over the next 48h, you’ll get it for 30% off”
- Highlight the cost of NOT investing in you – Getting rid of a problem is what motivates us to take action, but our default state is to… not do anything. So, to compel your prospects to invest in your products or services, show them the cost of that inaction (for example, they’d keep wasting 10h a week on tasks that could be automated). Use data and case studies to prove your point, too
13. Focus on retention and upselling
Lead generation and sales are vital, but you shouldn’t stop making an effort once someone gets to the bottom of your funnel.
In fact, you’re probably sitting on a goldmine: your existing customers! Yep, it’s much cheaper to keep them in your world than it is to attract and convert new ones from scratch.
How to improve it
- Perfect your customer experience – Don’t just collect feedback from your new customers (for example, through a ScoreApp survey): act on it!
- Offer the right support – From clear and personalised onboarding (for example, based on someone’s ScoreApp quiz answers) to excellent customer service and regular check-ins: make sure your customers feel supported, especially with SaaS and technical products
- Upsell and cross-sell in a personalised way – Make valuable and relevant recommendations by focusing on what would complement someone’s past purchases or align with their preferences (for example, depending on their ScoreApp quiz answers)
- Encourage customers to stick around – Reward them through a loyalty programme. Why not surprise them with the occasional bonus and gift too, showing them you don’t take them for granted? And consider offering them compelling incentives when you ask them to refer you to their peers
Optimise your entire B2B sales process with ScoreApp
Stop missing out on leads and customers! Take full control of your B2B sales process, and optimise it to start saving time and selling more.
As you now know, ScoreApp can support you at every stage. Your full quiz funnel will keep attracting leads, nurturing them, and making them the right offer at the right time, all automatically.
The first step? Creating your ScoreApp quiz today and for FREE.
