What Is A B2B Sales Representative? The B2B Role In Digital Commerce

B2B sales staff is one of the hottest job positions today. This is a position that offers many opportunities for personal and business development. B2B sales representatives are also a type of sales.

That said, it has many differences from traditional sales staff. Because this is a special sales team, not everyone could apply and promote their strength in this position.

So what is a B2B sales representative? What role does this position play in the business and its development? Let's explore the answers to the questions in today's article.

B2B sales staff are the objects that directly generate revenue for businesses

What Is B2B Selling? The Role Of B2B In Business Activities

B2B salesperson is an extremely important object for the development of the business. They are the people who bring in revenue for the business.
Therefore, employees in this position need to have good qualities, high endurance, intelligence, and sensitivity to help the business develop.

1. What Is B2B Selling?

Conceptually, B2B is an abbreviation of the phrase business to business.
This is a form of business, trade, and exchange between business and business. Business forms include e-commerce, physical transactions, consulting, quotation, contract making, and product exchange.

2. The Role Of B2B Sales Staff

Business to business sales representatives are in charge of the connection channel between business customers, (a manufacturing business with a distribution company, i.g.). The specific job of a B2B sales representative is still sales.
They have to solve the problem of how to sell goods and materials. The only difference between them and traditional sales staff is the audience.

B2B sales representative - a connection channel between business customers

3. The Role Of B2B In Business Activities

A special feature of the B2B model is that each business has its purchasing process. They apply technology software and automation systems in management and transactions to save time and money. This also helps increase opportunities for cooperation between businesses.

B2B customers are often more interested in logic. Therefore, sales staff need to focus on product features instead of emotional factors when dealing with them.

At the same time, you need to know who is in charge of purchasing products? What role do they play in the cooperation process?

Popular B2B Business Models and Trends in Vietnam

The most popular B2B business models in the Vietnamese market include:

• B2B model favoring the seller: This is an easy model to see in Vietnam. In this model, the seller is the center for distributing products and services to third parties. The form of distribution is through a website or an e-commerce platform.
• B2B model favors the buyer: This model is less common, and the buyer will own the operations. In some cases, the buyer's business will actively build a policy and website for the seller to find.
• Intermediary B2B model: Businesses will act as an intermediary between sellers and buyers. Examples of intermediate B2B models include Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, etc.
• B2B commercial cooperation model: This is a more centralized model and is owned by many businesses.

The trend of B2B business in Vietnam is growing and expanding. Many businesses have caught up with the trend, and business under the B2B model has achieved impressive success.

For example, some businesses follow the intermediary B2B model, such as Tiki, Lazada, Zalora, Cungmua, Hotdeal, and Foody,... Still, this model does not have many business connections, so the development is still limited.

But up to now, many businesses have been interested in this model. In the not too distant future, it will grow stronger.

The B2B intermediary model is trending in Vietnam

The Difference Between B2B And B2C Sales Models

Although both are responsible for sales, B2B and B2C have many differences, such as:

• Differences in customers
• Differences in negotiation and transaction
• Integration difference
• Differences in marketing
• Differences in the sales process

Things That Make B2B Sales More Difficult Than B2C

B2B sales representatives face more difficulties than B2C for the following reasons:

1. Special Customers

The target customers of the B2B model are businesses and organizations that need to buy products in large quantities. Enterprises purchase products for their activities of production and business. They are subjects with deep product knowledge, so convincing will be more difficult.

2. Greater Risks

The person responsible for finding B2B products and making purchase decisions is often in the upper echelons of the business. Since the cost and scale of application for B2B products are often large, the decision maker's responsibility will be higher.

Therefore, they are often more difficult to choose, evaluate and experience products. They are also very careful when buying to avoid making the wrong choice that affects their work. Closing a contract is difficult, and field sales representative B2B also have to face the situation of contract cancellation at any time.

B2B business has difficulty closing contracts with customers

3. B2B Needs More Knowledge To Compare And Evaluate Products And Services

B2B products and services provide solutions to customers, specially helping business partners save costs and shorten the administration and business process.

Therefore, logic in product presentation is extremely important. Sales representatives need to understand the products, presentation methods, and skills to respond to partners' requests. Simultaneously, it offers flexible solutions to build sustainable relationships with customers.

4. More Soft Skills Required To Establish And Maintain Relationships

Purchases in B2B are more than just one or two people making decisions. In contrast, the buying decision must go through the collective management of the business. Therefore, you must be a good communicator, persuade, and be reliable for customers to trust and pay.

Soft skills are extremely important for sales staff

5. Patience And Planning, The Alternative That Works

Sales representative must always be patient in all work. You will need to be attentive and in constant contact with customers. It might take you weeks, even months to do that.

6. B2B Is Highly Sensitivity To The Health Of The Economy

When the economy is in crisis, the first thing businesses do is cut costs. And one of the measures businesses think about is asking for a discount, even with signed contracts. This will affect the sales goals of B2B businesses.

7. Huge Transaction Value

Unlike the B2C business model, the value of orders in B2B is often very large, even unlimited in value. More and more valuable orders will boost the business's revenue, help the business have a strong financial foundation, solve the cost problems, and create a premise for business development.

That said, this also puts a lot of pressure on the shoulders of the managers as they have to make sure that large value orders don't have any problems.
Even a small mistake can lead to a "domino effect", affecting the final revenue result for a business. Therefore, a tool to help track and check orders will help supervisors optimize their work.

8. Marketing Influences

If your product is good for a B2C business model, but your marketing is not effective, consumers will still accept it. But the B2B model is not like that; if the Marketing team is performing poorly, you will be the one responsible for persuading customers more.

Ineffective marketing will affect the sales of the B2B model

Important B2B Sales Skills

Sales staff act as the most effective communication channel. The advantages of products and services are all promoted and marketed directly to customers by you. Therefore, you need to earn important skills to work as a B2B sales representative effectively.

1. Emphasize Core Solution

In the past, sales staff often directly offered customers the price, benefits, and features of the service. Now, this method no longer works.
Salespeople are forced to invest in researching customer needs before introducing products.
Besides, you need to focus on tangible value and show the customer that the solution you offer helps them solve the problems they are facing.
Employees have to see their products and services as an invaluable alternative to conventional goods.

Focus on tangible value persuading customers to experience the product

2. Clear Description Of The End Result

Customers of B2B sales staff are businesses. Thus, besides the price, what they care about is the benefit value that the product brings. In addition to direct consulting, sales staff need special strategies to convince customers completely.
One of our suggested methods is to apply the warranty or post-sales policy, especially the customer support policy when there are unexpected problems happening.

3. Analytical Skills

This is an extremely necessary skill to help you understand the customer and the market and solve the situation encountered. Sales staff are forced to equip themselves with super analytical skills to avoid confusion by a series of business reports, markets, competitors, and products, etc.

Analytical skills help you work more efficiently

4. Approach and Persuasion Skills

Reaching business customers is many times more difficult than individual customers. Some of the tasks that sales staff need to perform when approaching business customers include:

• Understand your partner's goals, needs, and personality
• Prepare the necessary content, hitting their needs
• Be prepared with adequate knowledge to be ready to answer customer questions
• After approaching and convincing customers, building and maintaining relationships are necessary
• Regular visits will help supervisors find out on-going problems easier and assign to stakeholders to handle them soon, avoiding slow work progress and the detrimental effect on the business's performance.

Apply Management Software and Improve Efficiency For B2B Employees

In the digital age, management software applications help sales representatives optimize their work. For example, applying FieldCheck promoter management software will help you control the transaction process with customers right on your mobile phone.

FieldCheck helps change the way market workers work while enhancing work productivity thanks to the technology of mobile and big data. Additionally, you could share any information with your customers instantly. You could easily receive the information of new products, promotion campaigns, and competitors with a few taps on your phone.

FieldCheck - the perfect solution to improve work efficiency

Besides, the software also integrates a chat feature via Facebook Messenger; Thereby, customers will be suggested convenient store addresses based on their current location.

When the customers need the advice to find the right product, the application will rely on the customer's answers and make suggestions close to the request, then direct the customer to the company's website.

At the same time, the software makes it easier and faster to collect customer opinions thanks to the integration of mobile technology and Big Data. The analysis given by the application will help you know the trend and the situation of the market to make a reasonable marketing plan.

That's all about our article on what is a B2B sales representative? We hope this article will be useful to you. If you want to directly experience the smart management software from FieldCheck, please contact us to schedule the earliest appointment.