Selling is not about selling
A very Magritte-like title
Long time no speak
First of all, happy to be back with a new article of The Systematic Venture, the blog dedicated to bootstrapped entrepreneurs who make money without money and create value without millions. In other words, a big big-up to the real OGs around here.
Where are we heading? In the past two chapters, Core principles and Business fundamentals, I tackled generic topics and concepts, without concrete, real tips on how to create value and dollars. As you must know, I’m not a millionaire yet - soon insh’allah - so I learn while writing. In fact, I used to describe this blog as a serialized book, but I actually now call it a bootstrap journal. A serialized book is too arrogant, too academic, too Silicon Valley.
After writing the last articles, my sales representative left temporarily, and I had to take over the sales department: I realized I had an okay grasp of sales tactics, but a lack of understanding of the implementation of some basic concepts, the main one being that B2B sales is a process, and that the world funnel exists for other reasons than to please MBA bullshitters. It’s because it’s a practical concept you should know if you don’t want to rely on blind luck.
I’m proud though: I can say I managed to implement a system to generate value, even though it’s largely imperfect. In doing so, I discovered something: B2B selling is about almost everything but selling. It’s about trust and positioning.
Your main competitor is status-quo
Seventy percent of B2B negotiations end up in a status quo, which means nothing happened. Yes, they don’t choose anyone. Your biggest competitor is your interlocutor’s fear of making mistakes or their laziness to migrate to a new system and change their processes. You are not negotiating against your competitors; you are negotiating against oblivion and darkness, against nothing, to put it in simpler terms.
Status quo does not mean they are happy with their current solutions; it indicates that the solutions you are offering are not worth the hassle. In other words, it signals a lack of trust in your ability to solve their problem. If they don’t trust you, they won’t want to spend their money, and this stems from not understanding them well enough in the first place. This misunderstanding arises from not following an effective sales funnel. The moment you presented your product with a price tag, the chances of closing the deal were close to none, and this for several reasons:
You are not talking to the right person. Your targeting sucks and you likely need to iterate over multiple niches, and ask the right questions, to the potential clients and to yourself.
You are not listening sufficiently to their needs and focusing more on your perception rather than theirs. Remember, perceived value by your clients and by yourself are two different things. When they converge, magic happens.
You are addressing a critical aspect of their business without having built enough trust for them to even consider your offer. The dude you are talking about is likely scared as hell, and he’s got all the incentives not to do anything.
You mistakenly believe that words like “awesome” and “great” are actual validations during your sales call; they are not. These expressions are merely politeness. Validation should come from curiosity before selling, while praise is appropriate after the sale.
Your product is trash, and I’m sorry about that but I can’t do nothing for you
Except for the last point, these issues can be addressed - at least partially - through a solid sales funnel. I plan to use Guillaume Moubeche's sales funnel to explain my point.
This is an example of a sales funnel, briefly detailed. I won't go through a dull description of the steps—you might get bored and think I'm posting because I'm bored myself (half true; it's also because I'm single and introverted). The main takeaways from this funnel: the number of people at each step must decrease, with only the last step focused on actually closing. The time spent per qualified lead grows exponentially, while the time spent on unqualified leads shrinks to zero.
Filtering, and targeting
What is selling, anyway? How would you define that without looking at a dictionary? Is it the process of convincing, or is it when you actually charge people after you convince them? Are you a good salesperson because you talk a lot and manage to sell people something they don't need, or because you are good at having many meetings and making them feel good? B2B selling, and I would argue B2C as well, is a pursuit.
A sales funnel is good, but you must understand what problem it solves if you want to build a good one .
It helps you optimize the time spent on unqualified prospects at the top of the inverted pyramid.
It helps you increase the time spent per potential customer at each step and ensures you operate with the Pareto principle in mind: a few clients will receive most of the value. This leads me to the next point.
It helps you find those few clients and ensures it's not due to blind luck.
Once you find and qualify those clients, it often helps to establish some sort of relationship with them. At this stage, you can build trust by listening to them without being too greedy and by genuinely caring about their needs.
It's a progressive filter, not to gain revenue, but to build progressive trust among qualified people by letting them know not only your offer but also your value.
In other words, a successful sales funnel is not just a sequence of concrete steps but also a series of human actions: reaching out, listening to them, understanding their needs, explaining who you are and why you are relevant based on what you know about them, creating an offer that translates into value, opening the door for dialogue, and finally reaching the quote stage to charge for your service—not because it's cheap or you deceived them, but because they trust you.
Reaching out is the first step in a successful sales funnel. It involves making initial contact with potential clients in a way that helps you filter unqualified leads. People must understand who you are, and what you sell.
Listening to them : This means actively paying attention to what potential clients are saying, both verbally and non-verbally. By truly understanding their concerns and desires, their fears and actual needs.
This step involves gathering information about their preferences, challenges, and goals. If you listen to them, you will know which questions to ask. Position yourself as a knowledgeable partner who can offer solutions specifically relevant to them.
Explaining who you are and why your relevance matters. Why are you better positioned? Because at this stage, you listened to them, have more information, and made sure you are not ignoring things you should not ignore.
Creating an offer that translates into value involves aligning your products or services with the client's needs. An offer is not just a price with a product or service; it's about the value they will receive for what they pay, and why this value outweighs the price they are paying, both in the short term and long term.
If your sales funnel is well-constructed, charging should feel much more natural. A sales funnel is less about convincing people and more about understanding them and gathering information so you can position yourself exactly where they are seeking help. Selling isn't just about a price and a product; it's about addressing a need, which often relates to a problem, fear, anxiety, or desire. It's about being the person who holds the solution to this situation. You wouldn't trust random strangers to solve your emotional problems, and neither would your clients. A sales funnel is about building trust, not merely selling a product.
Voss.