More and more entrepreneurs are either adding a B2B revenue stream to their business, or shifting to focus completely on serving corporate clients, and this is a shift I love to see! With the global consulting market being a $250 billion industry, this is proof that there is space for you in these rooms and at these tables. Let’s make sure you're positioned to get your piece of the pie in 2023 and beyond. In today’s episode, I share with you three tips to position your business for success in the B2B market. Hit play, and let’s get started!
🎯 Top Takeaway from Today's Episode
📌 Key Points from the Episode
Characteristics of a Corporate Client
The 3 Tips to Position Yourself for B2B Success
📊 Statistics You Need to Know
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🔗 Links
✍🏾 Sign up for the Corporate Coins Training: How to Attract, Sell and Serve Corporate Clients training
🎧 Listen to Episode 31: How to Tap into the Mind of Corporate Decision Makers
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0:00:08 Salutations, friend! Welcome to The Profit Scale podcast, where we help independent Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) entrepreneurs earn at their highest levels by learning how to secure corporate contracts.
I’m your host, Ruth-Joy Connell, your Corporate Consultant and Sales Enablement Expert. I’m on a mission to equip you with the systems and strategies you’ll need to build a business of generational impact and income.
Around here, we bring culture and coins together — providing all the learning, community and support you’ll need as you scale your business. If you’re ready to step into your next level of income and impact, then you, my friend, are in the right place!
Turn up the volume and lean in, 'cause we’re about to get started!
0:01:02 Salutations, friend! Welcome back to another episode, but not just any episode — this is our season two finale. Yes, our season has come to an end, but there's one last topic that I want us to talk about before we close off the chapter that has been season two.
This season, we've covered some really foundational topics from positioning yourself to attract high value clients to how to find your first corporate client and more. This season has served as what I would say is a masterclass in working with corporate clients. It's my intention to build on this foundation in the next season of The Profit Scale.
First, as you're preparing your 2023 strategy, or maybe you've already begun implementing the steps to sell to and serve corporate clients, I want to end this season by supporting you to position your business for B2B success in 2023 and beyond.
0:01:59 Let's start off by defining B2B. The term B2B stands for business-to-business. It refers to transactions that take place between two businesses, so selling from one business to another.
I've had clients ask me how big the company needs to be in order for it to be considered a corporate contract, or how much revenue they should be generating from that contract in order for it to count. The truth is, there is no hard and fast definition for what is considered a corporate client.
A company with five employees could be generating multiple millions in revenues, and they could hire you for a six-figure contract, while a company of 500 employees may only hire you for a five-figure contract. The work and the revenue vary a lot, so instead of using a hard definition, I think it helps instead to consider the characteristics of corporations and use them as a guide.
0:02:50 One of the major characteristics of a corporate client is that a corporate deal usually involves more than one person in the decision-making process. There could be a board of directors, multiple C-suite or VP executives, or more. Usually, the decision to hire isn't made unilaterally. Even when the person hiring you has the power to do so, they still tend to consult with their team.
Back in Episode 31, I broke down three major roles involved in the decision-making process, so I'm not going to go over it again here, but I do encourage you to go back and listen to that episode if you haven't already.
0:03:30 Another characteristic of corporate contracts is that the length of the contract tends to be longer. On average, about three months, and it can be even longer than that. Corporations and larger organizations do a lot of planning and have a lot of moving parts when it comes to projects. This often means that timelines are longer to account for things like cross-departmental coordination, approvals, revisions, and even just getting together all the necessary parties in the same room or on the same page.
0:04:00 Lastly, a final characteristic is that there's usually an established budget for a vendor or project. This ties back to the point I just made about companies requiring a lot more planning in order to make decisions. This means they've already set aside a certain amount of funds to tackle the problem. Even if they don't know exactly what type of solution they need, there's still a budget to address it.
These are just a few of the characteristics of corporations you'll notice the more you get into working with them.
I've noticed that more and more entrepreneurs are either adding a B2B revenue stream to their business or shifting their focus completely to serving corporate clients. This is a shift I absolutely love to see. Why? Because the global consulting market is a $250 billion industry with North America being the most mature market globally.
While you may not refer to yourself as a consultant, this simply refers to hiring Outside Experts and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to help solve a problem. This means that chances are your services actually fit into this category, and it's further proof that there is space for you in these rooms and at these tables.
The revenue from one corporate client can produce the same amount of revenue that it would take you 20 B2C clients to generate. This is why I am so passionate about supporting you to be successful in this market. It's why my goal for today's conversation is to leave you with a few practical ways you can position your business for success in the corporate market in 2023.
As I share these tips with you, I encourage you to think about it in the context of your own business strategy and to evaluate how you can implement them over the next 12 months. Think about how you can incorporate them and where and how they fit in with the strategic moves you're looking to make and what you can do differently to position your business for success.
0:06:00 Let's jump in. The first and most important tip I have for you is to believe that you belong. I just shared how massive the corporate market is, and that there's plenty of space for you to get your piece of the pie. However, if you don't believe that you belong, you're worthy, and you're capable, you won't put yourself in the running.
As Wayne Gretzky said, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." This may seem like a simple no-brainer tip, but it's often the simple things that we overlook. Adopting this mindset and perspective becomes especially important as you begin prospecting.
The average B2B sales cycle is 108 days, meaning you're going to need resilience if you're going to be successful. When you're struggling to believe that you belong, it becomes a lot easier to quit when things get hard.
0:06:50 Getting out of your own way is an internal challenge — one that you'll have to overcome regularly. If you start now, you better position yourself for success in the months ahead. One practical way to begin to cultivate this belief for yourself is to look for peers in your market who are providing complimentary services to yours.
Let the sheer fact that they are having success serving corporate clients be an inspiration to you and a reminder that you can do it, too.
0:07:20 The second tip is to practice your ABPs, which stand for "Always Be Prospecting." Prospecting is an active revenue-generating activity where you're reaching out to potential clients instead of waiting for them to come to you.
Consider that 99% of corporations out there have no idea who you are and that you even exist. Waiting for them to stumble upon you is not a strategy. It's just not realistic. It doesn't mean they're not willing to work with you.
When you are constantly prospecting, you are constantly building relationships. Over time, this will lead to business opportunities. It's important to understand though that building relationships takes time. The worst time to start is when you need to bring in revenue for your business.
When you're in a tough place financially, whether or not you intend to, you end up leading with that energy in your posts, in your emails, and in your outreach. When you make a practice of building relationships, then there is always a potential deal in your pipeline. The more you prospect, the more relationships you build, and the more you close.
A practical way to implement this is to attend industry events. If you can be a speaker at one of them, even better. Now, you don't have to attend all of them. If you can find five key events in your industry to attend in 2023, ones where you know your target audience will be in the room, then those events can fill your pipeline for the year when done correctly.
I recommend attending events because trust is much easier to build in person. When you can see someone's face and hear their voice and feel their energy, that speeds up the process of building trust. Ultimately, people will buy from people they know, like, and trust.
Remember, even when you're selling B2B, we are still humans selling to other humans. In addition, everyone who's attending those events is doing so on behalf of their company. They're in the room for the same reason. This means they're more likely to be willing to speak with you and share with you their challenges, their upcoming opportunities, and even what they're working on now, all of which is going to be really valuable information for you.
While it's still a long-term strategy, it does speed up part of the process by giving you access to first-hand information from your target audience and building the know, like, and trust factor much faster.
0:09:50 Hey friend, so you know when you were younger and you found out that the popular kid in school was having a party, but then you realized that you weren't invited to the party. Everyone you knew was going to be there. Then, you're like, "Who cares? I don't want to go anyways," but secretly you wanted to go. This is kind of like that, except you're invited.
I want to personally invite you to join me for our exclusive Corporate Coins Training. If you're an avid listener to the podcast, then you already know that here we cover all things serving corporate clients, but this workshop takes everything you're already learning to a whole new level.
During this free training, I'll be walking you through the framework, of course, for how to attract, sell to, and serve corporate clients while also diving into the coins and culture to address the challenges that we specifically face in these environments as Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) entrepreneurs.
This training is interactive. It's high-energy, industry-leading content, jokes and laughter, and of course, it's a safe space for us to come together, have real conversation, and for you to be supported on your journey.
Here's the catch: there is no replay.
You either come live or you miss it. This, my friend, is why you're going to want to make sure you register for this training and mark it on your calendar. The training, of course, is free, but that doesn't mean that there isn't an investment required. The investment is your time — that's it. You bring you, and I'll meet you there with everything else you'll need.
To get all the details and register for the free training, just click the link in the show notes to save your spot. Trust me! You'll be glad that you did.
All right, friend. Back to the episode.
0:11:41 And the third and final tip is to become fluent in the language of ROI (Return on Investment). The Return on Investment speaks to the results and the impact of your results on your client, which of course is the company.
One of the challenges I see many entrepreneurs face is that they often speak of the tangible deliverables and outcomes of their service, but they forget to quantify the impact of those results.
For example, if you're providing web design services to an organization that is doing a rebrand after 30 years of service, then the kinds of things you want to get clear on is how your services will impact their company and brand. You're providing a lot more than a website. You're providing a seamless transition between the old and the new that allows their customers to receive the same high-quality experience they've come to expect from the company over the last 30 years. That means you're aiding in their customer retention. You're also elevating their customer experience by perhaps making it easier for the customers to purchase or find the pages and products they're looking for by making their website easier to navigate on their own. This means you're also increasing their customer satisfaction while decreasing the number of support tickets they receive, ultimately saving them time and making them money.
0:13:03 Do you understand what I'm saying here? I want you to learn how to translate outcomes to impact. Impact should ultimately affect the company's revenue, for the better, of course. As you develop this skill, you change the direction of the conversation during your discovery calls. You learn to ask better questions and make better connections so that your working relationships produce more than just deliverables. A quantifiable Return on Investment will allow you to refer back to it for future opportunities and help you to close more business.
In our program Systems at Scale™, I teach my clients how to collect the data they need to measure their impact through a strategic onboarding process. You have to be able to present supporting data that speaks to your results. This is how you learn to speak the language of corporate buyers and how you very easily differentiate yourself from other service providers. One practical way to implement this tip is to review the results you've produced for your clients this year. Identify the impact of those results on your client's company and quantify them where you can to begin to show trends.
0:14:12 As you prepare to execute your B2B strategy in the months ahead, I believe we're going to see a shift in the corporate market. As organizations prepare to weather the recession with the economic downturns that are looming around the corner, they're also going to tighten up their budget and become more strategic with how they spend their dollars. This doesn't mean there won't be any money available to spend, it just means they'll become even pickier about who they work with.
What does that mean for small business owners like you? Well, I predict that the experts who succeed in winning these B2B contracts will be the ones who prioritize action. It means that now is the time to prioritize things like building relationships, learning what's important to your prospects, and learning how to speak their language.
In other words, the things we just talked about, I believe that in 2023, the lack of prioritizing sales as a necessary function for B2B success will very quickly begin to reflect in your revenue. Even referrals won't be enough to win business over the entrepreneur that is doing the work to position their company for success. This is why it was so important to me that we have this conversation now to help you factor these tips and predictions into your strategy.
I've seen my clients secure their biggest deals yet in the middle of the pandemic, so I know for a fact that even in the most unpredictable economy, corporations are still spending. I've said it before and I will say it again, it is not a matter of if they will spend the money, it's a matter of who they will spend it with. Position your business to be on the receiving end of their budget.
0:15:56 All right, friend. Let's recap our conversation today and talk about how we can convert this conversation to coins.
I started off today's conversation by defining the characteristics of B2B clients.
From there, I shared three tips to help you position your business for success in securing and serving B2B clients.
0:16:47 As you know, our conversation is never complete without talking about how we can take action and today is no different. With each of the three tips I gave earlier, I also gave you a practical way to implement it so you could actually begin actioning it.
Your action item for today is from tip number one, and that's to identify five industry events you can attend next year to help you build your pipeline of prospects. The year is not over yet, so there is still time to do this before the year ends. Okay, so let's get to work.
0:17:20 As always, there is a standing invitation for you to jump in my DMs on LinkedIn and share the events that you find with me. I, myself, am building my own list and who knows, maybe we can refer some events to each other. The invitation continues to stand.
Okay, so I know you've heard me say this before, but friend, if you are not subscribed to the podcast, do it now, like literally right now as you're listening, because in the next season of the Profit Scale, I'm going to be introducing interviews.
Yay! This is where I imagine that there's a studio track of people clapping in the background. I am so excited to bring you experts that will help you thrive in your corporate client journey. Ones who are not just bringing you knowledge, but insight into the world of B2B sales and service as well.
Don't worry. You're still going to hear from me. We're still going to have our one-to-one conversations, but now you'll also get to hear from a diverse group of amazing leaders in the B2B space as well.
Season three of the Profit Scale is going to be our best season yet. Mark my words. You are going to want to be here for this.
To make sure you don't miss our season premiere, subscribe to the podcast or follow the podcast wherever you listen. That way, you'll be notified when the season premiere episode is released.
As always, friend, I'm grateful you chose to spend this time with me. I hope each episode plays a small part in moving you one step closer to building a business that will have a generational impact.
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