The subject of sales techniques is vast, and no single article will exhaust it. We have selected four approaches that have the advantage of being practicable day to day, with no extra budget or tool, in a B2B context.

What they have in common: they rely on contacts you already have, rather than on winning over complete strangers.

Here is how to put them into practice and, above all, how to combine them. The team behind our automatable and flexible CRM tells you everything.

Follow-up

It is easier to sell to an existing customer than to a stranger: it is a commonplace of the trade, and it is confirmed every day. Yet many salespeople neglect their customers for lack of regular follow-up.

Sales follow-up therefore comes top of this ranking. It is aimed at customers or prospects who already know you, which removes the most costly step: getting identified.

The obstacle is almost always psychological. Getting back in touch feels like disturbing or pushing. The answer is to give yourself a legitimate reason to call:

• a study or publication you have just produced;
• a comparable project you have just delivered;
• something new in your offer;
• a regulatory change that affects their sector;
• a time of year suited to review or budget preparation.

All that remains is not forgetting to do it, which means scheduled follow-ups rather than good-will follow-ups. This is exactly what workflow automation makes possible.

Referrals

A referral occurs when a customer puts you in touch with someone likely to become one. It is the channel with the best conversion rate, and the most under-used. There are four forms.

• Word of mouth, which circulates without your intervention and which you do not control.
• Suggested referral: you simply invite your satisfied customers to talk about you around them. Put without heaviness and repeated, it ends up producing results.
• Solicited referral: at the end of a service, you measure satisfaction, then explicitly ask for an introduction.
• Referral with a reward: a commission or benefit if the introduction succeeds. Beware, this form must be transparent towards the prospect, otherwise it damages the trust it was supposed to exploit.

A satisfied customer readily recommends, but few salespeople think to ask. That is the whole difference between waiting for word of mouth and organising it. And in every case, thank the person who recommended you: it is what decides whether they will do it again.

Lead nurturing

Lead nurturing consists of maintaining the relationship with prospects who are not yet ready to buy. The aim is not to convince them straight away but to accompany them in their thinking, with content that genuinely helps them.

The more the information received matches the prospect’s profile and timing, the better the technique works. This requires segmentation, therefore a properly qualified database, and lead management that distinguishes levels of maturity.

A common-sense remark on formats: favour what can be consumed quickly. A diagram, a concrete case or a short video go down better than a thirty-page document that nobody will open.

Social selling

Social selling consists of identifying, following and engaging prospects through professional networks. In B2B, that concretely means LinkedIn, supplemented by the specialist communities and media in your sector.

This technique has established itself for a simple reason: buyers now do a great deal of research before contacting any supplier. If you do not exist at that stage, you enter the race a lap behind, if you enter it at all.

The practice differs from classic prospecting on one point: you give first, you ask afterwards. Commenting with relevance, sharing a useful analysis, answering a public question builds a legitimacy that a prospecting message never builds.

How to combine them

These four techniques do not play out on the same timescale, and that is precisely what makes them complementary.

Follow-up and referrals produce quickly, but their volume is capped by the size of your portfolio. Nurturing and social selling take months before paying off, and then feed a steady flow.

The practical consequence is simple: do not wait until you need customers to launch the slow techniques. A company that starts its groundwork the day its order book empties will suffer the delay in the middle of a cash-flow crisis.

The balance is then tuned to your situation, and managed from your sales pipeline, the only place where you can see where signed deals really come from.

Your questions about sales techniques

How often should you follow up with an existing customer?

There is no universal rhythm, but there is a principle: follow up when you have something to say. A contact every quarter with a real reason is better than a monthly contact with no content.

How do you ask for a referral without embarrassment?

By asking at the right moment, just after satisfaction has been expressed, and by being specific. “Do you know anyone in this situation?” gets an answer, “think of me” gets none.

Is lead nurturing suitable for small organisations?

Yes, provided you stay modest on volume. Three genuinely useful pieces of content are worth more than an ambitious programme abandoned after two months, which is the most frequent scenario.

Does social selling replace telephone prospecting?

No, it prepares it. A call to someone who has already come across you online is nothing like a cold call. The two combine rather than substitute for each other.

Which should you start with when starting from zero?

With following up your existing contacts, even old ones. It is the only technique that produces from the first week, and it costs only time.