In B2B enterprise sales teams, there is a lot that needs to be taken into account as you put together a list of prospects. Enterprise sales aren’t like selling to a small startup, where the founder is always the one making the final decision. In enterprise sales, there may be multiple decision-makers that have to sign off on an idea before they pull the trigger. Additionally, it is difficult for B2B enterprise sales teams to identify exactly who they should be selling to without an org chart. Initially, there may be no way of knowing that the person you’re speaking with is actually the one that can call the shots.
There are a few different ways that putting together org charts for prospect organizations and companies can help B2B enterprise sales teams. Some of these include:
Find the Decision-Makers
In enterprise sales, your first point of contact is often not the person who will ultimately make the decision on your product. Although you will want to go through the first contact to reach others in the organization, it is never a bad idea to begin mapping out high-value organizations that will be a good fit for your product.
Eventually, you’ll want to transition conversations to include the decision maker as well as any other contacts within the company. An org chart can be a great way to make your best guess for who the decision makers are, and begin to work toward including them in the nurturing process along with your initial contact.
If your contact has an org chart from their company, that would be ideal. If not, you can always put one together yourself and fill it out as you learn more and meet more people that work for their company. Not only will this result in a much shorter negotiation period, but it will help you to build more relationships inside the organization.
Build More Relationships With Prospect Organizations
Put yourself in the shoes of a decision maker that has to make the final call of your product. If they have one person coming to them, suggesting that they invest in a new solution for a problem that they are having, it will probably pique your interest. It might be on your radar, but you certainly won’t be in a hurry to check it out and pull the trigger on the sale. However, if you have four of your trusted employees pushing for a specific solution, it’s definitely going to be higher on your list of priorities.
Building more relationships within prospect organizations is absolutely essential for B2B enterprise sales teams. The more people that you can get on board with your solution, the easier the close will be. Additionally, if you can get management standing behind your product, it makes closing the sale much easier and likely in a shorter time frame.
The more relationships you can build within a prospect organizations, the better. It’s particularly helpful if you build professional relationships with decision makers or people that work directly with them. Remember — the people that make these decisions have budgets and other priorities they have to worry about. It isn’t enough to have your product mentioned in passing. You need people within the company championing your solution.
Mitigate Risk For Longer Partnerships
Anyone that has worked in B2B for any length of time probably knows what it is like to have a contact leave a client company and then have your partnership ended shortly thereafter. For this reason alone, having more than a single relationship at a client company is absolutely imperative for reducing organization risk. B2B enterprise sales teams should always secure new sales with longterm benefits in mind.
By developing relationships with several people in the organization, you aren’t at risk of losing the account as soon as a single person leaves the company. The more you can ingratiate yourself within their processes and become a trusted solution within their teams, the better chance you have of holding onto the account in the long-term.
Sales org charts are essential for developing these kind of relationships. You don’t want to put too much effort into building a relationship with a single person because when they leave, you no longer have anyone within the company that is championing your product or service.
Tailor Pitches to Your Audience
In enterprise sales you may only get one chance to pitch your product to a prospect company. Decision makers are busy and aren’t going to give second chances because they simply don’t have the time. For this reason, it is incredibly important that you are able to hit all of the right notes and address specific concerns for the people that you are presenting to.
By establishing relationships before your sales meeting, you can get feedback from each of the stakeholders, helping you to deliver a pitch that touches all of the most important bases within the company. When you only have a single point of contact, you are only receiving their perspective, and can only address their needs. You need to receive feedback and understand the full organizational concerns, not just the perspective of your contact. An organizational chart can be a great way to get into contact with others and understand the concerns of any stakeholders.
Maximize the Value of Your Solution
When you sell your solution to a company, there is a good chance that they are not maximizing its value. Your product may be used inside of a single department, or with a specific team when it would actually be useful to a large swath of a given company. Using an org chart to speak with others inside of a company can help you identify other opportunities within a prospect company for your solution to be helpful. This not only increases the value of your offering and makes it an easier sell, but it gets more people within the company on board with your proposed solution. It allows you to further ingratiate your solution within their processes, so you are more likely to keep them on as a longterm client.
B2B Enterprise Sales Teams and Org Charts
Org charts are a critical tool in B2B enterprise sales. When you are selling solutions to large organizations, you want to make sure that you develop as many close relationships with them as you can. Additionally, you want to maximize the value that your product provides so that you are more likely to keep them on as a longterm client. Enterprise sales start as a single relationship. The more relationships you have, the better of a position you are in, and org charts are the most useful tool you have at your disposal for building these relationships.