3 Game-Changing B2B Sales Strategies (To Close The Deal)

Ever had a great sales call, sent the proposal, and got ghosted? Learn how to guide them step-by-step to a signed deal with these actionable B2B sales strategies!

If you're looking to master the art of B2B selling, this episode is for you. We share the top strategies we’ve implemented in our business to secure mid-market and enterprise clients with consistency. These techniques have been fine-tuned through working with over 1,000 B2B clients and are designed to help you build trust, maintain momentum, and close deals more effectively. Whether you're just getting started in B2B sales, or you’re already selling to mid-market and enterprise companies and just want to level up your sales skill set, this episode will help you achieve greater success in your B2B sales.

Key Topics + Chapter Markers:

[0:00] Introduction
[1:05] Momentum is Key
[10:00] Team-to-Team Selling
[17:10] Asking the Right Questions

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About The Hosts:

• Tim & Cindy Dodd are the Co-founders of PEMA.io, based out of Miami, FL. Connect with Tim and Cindy: Instagram

About PEMA.io:

• PEMA.io is a Inc 5000 Outbound Marketing Agency specializing in Enterprise Sales & Appointment Setting. With over 7-years and 1,000+ clients served in the industry, PEMA is the leading agency for cold outreach appointments & systems. Learn more about PEMA.io here: www.pema.io/discover

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:05 Momentum is Key
• 10:00 Team-to-Team Selling
• 17:10 Asking the Right Questions

Transcript

00:00

After reviewing hundreds of sales calls, this is by far the number one area where people, you know, miss out on sales and miss out on closed deals. I wanna think about enterprise mid-market sales is I always have to have a reason to get the next call. But I'm always framing my calls, hey, the goal of this call is to walk through the strategy. We're probably gonna need to make some adjustments if you like it. We're probably gonna have to do a follow up with your CEO on the call.

00:24

I'm always framing what those are and then I'm giving them a reason to get on the next call. You have to lead the prospect to the decision by scheduling multiple calls and not letting the prospect kind of sit on their own and make a decision because nine times out of 10.

00:39

the prospect is not gonna be the one to say, yeah, sure, let's do it. I wanna get everybody out of there that doesn't wanna be in there as soon as possible so I can put my energy, my time, my focus on the ones that do need my help. But guess what happens when you create that dichotomy is that those who are bought in, get even more bought in when you do that. Welcome to The Takeover with Tim and Cindy, where we show you how to dominate every area of life and business. Let's get with it.

01:05

If you want to see how to do B2B sales for for mid market and enterprise type clients, I'm going to walk you through three tactics that are going to make a massive difference. Now our company made a huge shift. We've worked with over 1000 clients, but the time of this recording, we made a huge shift this year into going after mid market and enterprise type clients. And we've hired a lot of coaches and consultants and processes to really dial in our enterprise sales process. And I wanted to bring to the top three strategies that we've found to be

01:34

the biggest leverage points for enterprise and mid-market sales. So let's go ahead and jump on in. So number one is momentum. When you think about enterprise sales versus selling to smaller businesses or selling to consumers, enterprise sales is always about momentum. The mistake that people make in enterprise and mid-market sales is that they do a discovery call.

02:01

Then they do another call, which is the full presentation. And then they send a proposal. And then they hope that the client magically closes themselves and the whole internal team closes where what you want to do is you want to be the one who keeps the momentum going. You have to remember a lot of people actually don't know how to buy your product. There's not some internal SOP with like, here's the buyer's process. They might have some rules for buying. They might have some standards, but you, as the salesperson, you have to

02:29

build the momentum and you have to keep the momentum going. So instead of doing big hour long calls and doing two of them, I would rather do a bunch of 20, 30 minute calls, maybe a 45 minute call every now and then, and keep the deal going. So I'll give you an example of momentum is, so if I do a, say a 30 minute discovery call, and I get all the information that I have my team build a strategy, and then the second call I do, I call it a strategy call, instead of a proposal.

02:56

And what I tell them at the beginning of the strategy calls, I say, Hey, we're going to go over the details today, nine times out of 10. We got to develop this. There's going to be things that your team needs. You're going to like this, but we're going to need to make some adjustments. So I'm pre-framing that proposal call as telling them that we are going to have more follow ups from that call. And so my momentum is, okay, I'm going to do a strategy and then I'm going to, and we'll go into this more in a second, but I'm going to go, Hey, what's missing from this?

03:25

that your team needs. Hey, what am I not thinking about that your team is going to need to see? Hey, what would keep this deal from moving forward? So I'm constantly flushing objections. And then I use those objections or their request to me, say, hey, yeah, Tim, we would need to see more XYZ. Instead of giving that to them on the call, I'm going to withhold that. I'm going to say, oh, I can get that information for you. Let's do this. I'll get all that information for you, and we'll set up another call to talk. So.

03:51

I want to think about enterprise mid-market sales is I always have to have a reason to get the next call. But I'm always framing my calls. Hey, the goal of this call is to walk through the strategy. We're probably going to need to make some adjustments if you like it. We're probably going to have to do a follow up with your CEO on the call. I'm always framing what those are and then I'm giving them a reason to get on the next call. Because if I just say, hey, Cindy, when's the time and call for you to do next Tuesday? You go, oh, no, I'll just follow up with you.

04:18

I have to have value on the follow-up call to keep that momentum going, which is gonna be, hey, you requested X, Y, Z information in this call. We've gotta make some adjustments to the strategy. I'm gonna get all that together for you, and let's go ahead and set up a call next Wednesday. So you always have to be going into a call thinking, I need to get enough value set up for the next call to keep this going, and then ultimately, what happens is if I've had three or four or five calls with you, you got really comfortable with me.

04:47

And you're going to get it to a point where it's like the next just logical conclusion for them is going to be to sign up. Right. And so that's what I mean by keeping momentum going. Because if I do a to call and I send you a proposal, I don't know any of your your team's objections and I don't have any way to keep the deal moving forward. So that's number one is momentum. Big time. This is probably one of the areas at our company we review hundreds of sales calls. This is by far the number one.

05:14

area that I see companies mess up and actually lose deals in the pipeline because they have the first call, the discovery. They either send a proposal and never hear back from the prospect again, or they don't like schedule the second call. Maybe they schedule the second call and then they send the proposal. And that's where a lot of deals get dropped. And I'm telling you, we're seeing this with really large companies, right? That are very established and they're doing great revenue. But

05:41

They're losing so many opportunities in the pipeline because they're not moving the deal through several calls, right? Like they're not having, as you're mentioning, that third, fourth and fifth call. I think there's that assumption, and I'm not sure if it's through sales trainings or maybe people just being used to transactional sales that they think two calls is enough, right? They do the first call, the discovery, as you mentioned, the second call, the strategy, and then that's it. And they're waiting for the prospect to reach back out to them.

06:09

to either sign the proposal or make a decision. Whereas the shift in focus has to be, you have to lead the prospect to the decision by scheduling multiple calls and not letting the prospect kind of sit on their own and make a decision because nine times out of 10, the prospect is not gonna be the one to say, yeah, sure, let's do it. There's so much and we're gonna talk about it that you have to unflinch throughout the sales process, things that maybe you're not even thinking about that your prospect is thinking about.

06:38

and having more than one call allows you to kind of work through that with your prospect. And so after reviewing hundreds of sales calls, this is by far the number one area where people you know miss out on sales and miss out on closed deals is that they're only scheduling two calls expecting the prospect to make a decision or they're not moving the call through the third, fourth and fifth stages. So there's one thing that you take out of this. Number one most important thing is.

07:05

There should always be a reason to schedule the next call. Never give the prospect like, hey, this is the decision call where you have to say yes or no today. Like you wanna make sure that you're working through that with them through multiple strategy calls. So keep the momentum moving forward. Yeah, it's shortening the calls, making each engagement lighter and spreading it out. So instead of trying to stuff all the information in one call, there's only so much.

07:32

information a person can take in a call before they're fatigued anyways. They call it call fatigue, right? There's only so much you can pay attention to as a prospect, as a potential buyer until you're just like, just send me the information and I'll get back to you. So you want, you want to make the calls long enough to get the information you need and get the stuff, but short enough so that there's still some stuff left that needs to be discussed for the next call. Look, if I completely trust you.

08:00

you're selling something to me and I completely trust you and I'm comfortable with you. There's not much sales that needs to happen. Right. And so if I already 100% trusted you and 100% knew you, then it would be a very short sales process. That's why people that go from referrals to selling outreach and coal, that they have troubles because they're, they're not used to, how do you build that trust? And one of the easiest ways to build that trust is just familiarity. And guess what happens if I've done

08:27

three, four, five calls with you, 30 minute calls, I'm getting pretty comfortable with you by now. And you know what, because I'm not overwhelming you with information, not exhausting your brain, you actually look forward to the calls that you're gonna do with me, because I keep it energetic, I keep it fun, I keep my word, if I told you I was gonna get something, I dang well got it free for the next call. And so that's a big part too that helps is just.

08:49

They get really comfortable with you and they start to trust you a lot. Instead of two one hour calls, you're doing, you know, four or five 30 minute calls makes a big difference. It does. One of the most common questions that I get asked is, okay, they ask for a proposal, like how do I get them to instead get on a call with me versus me? Just sending the proposal. Yeah, it's as simple. So here's how we work. I'm going to bring your information to my team. They're going to build a strategy. Then you and I will have a set up a call and we will walk through that strategy together.

09:18

Every now and then we do that strategy and it's the perfect exactly what our client needs. Nine times out of 10, we got to make adjustments on that depending on you or your team's needs. So when's a good time to set up that strategy call? Before you do your call, you have to think of reasons to get that next call. And what is the value to your prospect for getting the next call? Like just having a reason to get the next call doesn't mean anything unless there's a value to your prospect. So when I tell you, hey,

09:46

Sometimes the strategy is perfect and we launch most of the time and easy to be developed. So I'm going to walk through that with you and make sure we're on track. Make sure I've got the right strategy for you. Now there's a reason for you to want to do that next call with me because you see if I were to just send it to you, it's probably not going to work. Right. And so constantly think of reasons to get that next call, which can even be just a request for information. Like you might have that information on that call and you could pull up a slide and show it to them and they'd have it in five minutes.

10:16

But you can save that for an ex call. Hey, you know, let me get that information together for you and get that next call. So that's that's the biggest thing. There has to be a reason for your prospect to want to get on the next call. Yeah. So you have momentum. Part of momentum is the second point, which is team to team selling will kill, like destroy, like absolutely annihilate anybody that's trying to do one to one selling. And so what happens, the mistake that people make a lot is they've got a great

10:45

person that the old man, you know, I'm talking to the CRO and the CRO loves it. They love our product. It's on board, man. He said he's going to sell this to his team and you've only had a one-on-one conversation. What do you think the chances are that that CRO is going to be able to sell and communicate value and handle objections for you on the level that you're going to be able to for your product? No way. Right. Correct. So you want to do team to team sales. And so I want to get more people on their team involved.

11:15

but I also want to get more people on my team involved. So when I start bringing in, hey, I want to bring the client success manager that I want on your account. I'm going to bring him on the next call because you had some strategy requests and I think he could speak to that very well. Hey, if I bring him on, can you make sure your CEO is there? Cause you mentioned you like this, right? So I want to do team to team. And by the way, if you have the person that resistant to bring somebody else on the team, that means that they don't have interest.

11:43

because there's a certain amount of political capital that's involved. If you're selling to me on the CRO and you're asking me like, Hey, do you like, Oh, I love this. Great man. I love this detail. Okay. And I know that I've got to get the CEO involved to get this approved. And I tell you, no, I don't want to get them on the call. That means I'm not sold. That means that that should be an indicator if they are resistant to getting somebody else on their team involved that needs to be involved.

12:10

That means that you have not fully sold that person because guess what happens if you fully sold me Cindy and I'm the CRO and I'm like, wow, this is going to help our sales team so much. I'm going to be excited to get my CEO involved. Hey CEO, you got to see this. Cindy's got the best product. So use that if they're resistant to them bringing their team in, that's an indication that they're not fully sold because if they were fully sold, then I'd be willing to bring the team in. Right? So team to team sells.

12:37

And that can be a trade, right? You're always trading in the enterprise and mid-market sales, trading one thing for another. So, hey, I'm gonna get my CSM on the phone. Make sure you get your CEO there so that we can get all this stuff together. So you see, I kind of traded, I'm gonna do this for you, and I need you to do this for me. And we'll talk more about it in a second, but if they are being resistant to that, that's when I'm going to give them an off-ramp. Well, an off-ramp is, hey, if this isn't something that's serious for you at this time, totally understand. Just let me know that.

13:06

And I want to give them an opportunity to say, I don't want this product. I'm not sold. And get them out of my pipeline. But when you bring in team to team sales, and they start to experience the client success manager, maybe there was a copywriter on the team that you're going to bring on the call. Now all of a sudden, their CEO is on there, and the CRO is on there. And the VP of sales also wants to be on. Now all of a sudden, we're doing team to team sales. Your likelihood of closing that deal exponentially grows the more people are involved in the sales process.

13:36

on both sides. So never be scared to bring in somebody on your team to the next call, but ask for a trade. Hey, I'm going to bring my client success manager that's going to be in your account to answer those things to make efficient use of our time. Why don't you get the CEO on that call? When's the best next time for you and the CEO to be on a call with our team? So that's when you can do team this team sells, your close rates will go exponentially higher.

14:00

Because just think about it from your side as a prospect, right? You're starting to get to know the whole team that you're about to work with before you work with them. What's important too is when you are in that mid-market or enterprise sales, it's knowing that there are so many people that are involved in your product or service or that will be involved in taking it on, that you nine times out of ten are not just dealing with one person. So it's important upfront, whether it's on that first discovery call, maybe you've already done your research on

14:28

who are the people in that organization that will be working with or involved in my product or service if they take it on, the more you can know that information upfront, either through that first call or through your own research and discovery, it allows you to better bring in those people or to prompt your prospect to bring in those people throughout the sales process. Because I think if you just think that it's that one person that's gonna be the final, even if they are the decision maker, which is important,

14:56

They may be the decision maker, but they may not be the person that's going to utilize the product or service, right? Say for example, it's like the VP of sales that you're on a call with. Maybe it's like one of the sales reps that are actually going to be using the service and it's not the VP of sales. So the more people that you can bring in from that other team into the sales process, you are for sure going to get more buy-in and then you're also ensuring that.

15:20

that prospect or that team can adopt your product or service better, right? Because you're gonna be able to handle objections that maybe the sales rep has or the marketing manager has that the VP of sales is not even thinking about. So the more people that you can engage in that conversation, it allows you to make sure that your product and your service fits exactly what that person's mindset, their intentions, their goals are to ensure adoption and success.

15:46

Because probably the worst thing that you could do is like you sell it to someone and the VP of sales takes it on and then the marketing manager or like the, you know, the sales rep is like frustrated with the product because their intentions weren't in there or, you know, they didn't get what they wanted. So I think part of it being team to team type of sales is you have the opportunity as a company or as the person selling to unflinch all of those objections and ensure that your service is exactly what the people utilizing it want and need.

16:13

Yeah, because those individuals, they all have different motivations. Correct. You're selling to a business owner, they have a motivation because it's their business. You're selling to a VP of sales. I mean, you know, if they haven't been hitting their quarter for two quarters, that means that they're about to get fired if they don't figure something out. Every person is going to have a different motivation and a different bias and a different opinion on it. And you have to sell to the emotional first and then make sure the logical makes sense. But absolutely 100 percent. You've got to understand.

16:42

who's gonna be all the players, what are all the motivations, and then make sure your proposals and your strategy and your presentations speak to all of those people. And you might not be able to get all of them won, but those that you haven't been able to win over, you've at least got to neutralize. Yes. Right, and until- They're not gonna kill the deal. Yeah, you don't want them to kill the deal exactly. So yeah, super important. And so finding who those people are up front is super important, and then it's knowing that

17:10

If for some reason you aren't able to get them on calls or you're sensing that there's resistance to bringing on other teammates or other team members into the sales process, that should be a clear indication to you that you don't have the trust and that you don't have buy-in from that prospect, right? So how can you work on, as Tim is mentioning, either getting that trust and buy-in so that the person is excited to bring the strategy or the proposal back to their team or letting them know, like, okay, if it's not a fit, that's fine, you don't have to keep engaging.

17:40

in that sales process, which I think takes us really well into the third key and secret. So the third, and it ties into exactly what you're saying there, is you must remove this question I'm about to ask you from your vocabulary. Hey there, make sure that you are staying on top of your game by following the show. Hit that subscribe button for the Takeover with Tim and Cindy wherever you are listening. Let's get winning together.

18:11

Never ever, ever ask, does that make sense? It's probably one of the most common questions asked in cells. They show you a slide. So you're gonna get this, this, and this feature. Does that make sense? What do they say? Yeah, yes. Oh cool. And then we're gonna do this, this, and this. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. Huh, right? And then we're gonna do this, this, and this. Does that make sense? Yeah, right. Okay, because everybody, no one wants to break the news to you that they don't like your thing. They don't wanna tell you.

18:40

Well, this thing, this one thing we didn't like, I don't like that part. So what I want to actually do is I want to constantly be asking questions like, what's missing here? What am I not thinking about that your team needs? Looking at this portion of what we're talking about, how's your team going to feel about this? What are they going to say is missing or lacking? So you see, I'm asking them to point out the flaws and I have two outcomes from this. One is going to be nothing's missing. It actually is exactly what we need. And guess what they just told you?

19:10

They literally just sold themselves on this being exactly what they need. Or which is awesome. They're going to say, well, I know our CFO is going to really want to see specifics on X, Y, Z numbers. OK, tell me more about that. Why is he going to want to see that? OK, great. Now I'm going to see it and I'm going to adjust. I'm going to fix that. And we can do a follow up calls where I can get you that information. Right. You see. So you see how I just use a couple of strategies there to get the next call, but also flesh out an objection because

19:40

If I would have asked you, does that make sense? And you go, uh-huh. I would have never unearthed that objection. So that's a really big thing. You also want to, as we were just talking about before, if somebody is resistant to getting other players, other key stakeholders, or I call them players internally, other players on the call, it means they're resistant to the process. So you've got to have a hard cutoff. It's called an off-ramp. You've got to give them an off-ramp because.

20:05

Most people don't want to reject salespeople. They just don't want to. It's not easy. It's not a good feeling to say, you know, I don't like your stuff. Leave me alone. Stop bugging me. So I want to give them that opportunity. I'm going to say, hey, Cindy, no worries. You know, hey, I just want to be straightforward. I've got a lot of people that are interested in our products and service. If you're not interested at this or you don't think it's good fit at any point in time, you just let me know. Cause I don't want to waste your time and I don't want to waste mine. Like I'd rather spend it on people that need help with their lead generation. So.

20:34

The way that our sales process works is that if you're interested in this and you like this, the next step would start bringing in some of your team members because I wouldn't take you on as a client unless I knew I had buy in from your team. So you tell me, do you just want to kind of part ways or what's the next step for you? So I'm going to fill it out. It's not going to be as much. I was a little bit aggressive there in the language I use. It's like either we move this forward and we get more people involved or we just call it and that's OK.

21:02

Or maybe there's still something I haven't answered for you, Cindy. Maybe there's still something that's keeping you back. Is there something that's holding you back from wanting to move this thing forward? So that's the biggest thing is you've got to give them off-ramps and you've got to make it easy for them to say no, because in enterprise sales, if you're working three, six month stills, once your pipeline starts building, you're going to have a full-time job just managing your pipeline. I want to get everybody out of there that doesn't want to be in there as soon as possible so I can put my energy, my time, my focus.

21:31

on the ones that do need my help. But guess what happens when you create that dichotomy is that those who are bought in get even more bought in when you do that. And those who are not bought in, get off. So it allows you to focus your time on the people that have the highest interest, but guess what? It takes those people that do have a high interest when you do it, execute off-ramps correctly, it gets them more bought in and more interested. Because it shows that you're not desperate. You have other people interested in trying to move the deal forward. So that's it. Never ask, does that make sense?

22:01

ask what's wrong, what's missing, what would keep the deal from moving forward. And so more focusing on trying to get them to show you what's wrong with it, then just agree with you. The concept behind that is more so getting people to say no than say yes, right? The easy thing is to say yes. Does that make sense? Yes. What we want to flesh out is getting them to actually say no so that as the sales rep, as a salesperson, I can then fix it, right? If I know that this part.

22:26

doesn't fit exactly what they're looking for. They have some more requirements. By fleshing out that negative, we can make our proposal or our strategy or the service better so that it fits exactly what that prospect is looking for. And I think what we found internally is that there isn't a one size fits all in mid-market and enterprise sales. You can't sell one thing exactly the same to the same prospect. And so your role as the sales rep, or as the person that's selling, is to determine how can you fit

22:56

your service or your product to cater exactly custom to what that prospect is looking for. Of course, they're all going to be areas that are exactly the same that you always pitch in that, you know, you have those like one size fits all, but a lot of it is going to be custom actually using the prospect's language throughout your sales presentation, right? Throughout your proposal and your strategy and what you're sharing, because they want it to feel like it's custom made.

23:22

specifically for their business. And in that key, what you're mentioning is, in asking what's missing, or what am I not thinking about that you are, you're actually allowing yourself to flesh out what are those specifics that the prospect wants in your strategy or in your service that's gonna make it fit their business exactly custom. And that's what's gonna allow you to actually move so many deals across the finish line and faster. Yeah, and a lot of times it's simply language. I mean, one thing that we...

23:51

implementing this year is we would take all the transcripts from all the sales calls and then we would create an AI prompt to basically say here's the strategy we want to do for this client, here's all the sales calls we've done with them, transform our strategy and proposal with their language. And so literally is you got to make it their language, address their needs because

24:15

What are the chances that you and one or two callers are going to be able to create a proposal that's exactly everything they need? Absolutely not. So you want to ask those questions, what's missing? Because guess what? Where we take our transcripts and we turn them into follow-up emails and follow-up calls and proposals using their language, when I start to get those things, what's missing, that gives me crazy great information on how to do the follow-ups, how to do the emails, how to do the proposals, and how to craft

24:45

even if it really is the exact same product that I'm selling to them, as I'm selling to another person, to them it feels hyper customized, personalized, and also as you're getting other people involved in the team, I wanna know what the CFO is looking for, I wanna know what the legal team's gonna look for when I send over the legal stuff and all that. So yeah, 100%, getting to the no is so much better than getting to a yes, and you ultimately wanna get.

25:10

all the no's, what's missing until you get to the point where you ask, what's missing? And they go, nothing. This is exactly what we need. But it takes a lot of unearthing objections to get to that point where they feel like this is the fit for them, for sure. That's it. Those are the three strategies that have helped us massively with B2B enterprise and mid market sales. You got to build momentum. You got to keep the deal moving forward. Just remember.

25:33

It's not their job to keep the deal moving forward. That is your job. So keep momentum in the sales process at all times. Number two, team to team sales. The more you can get people involved on their side and your side, the likelihood of that deals closing goes up exponentially. So team to team selling is critical and ask for no, don't ask for yes. Kill the does that make sense and start asking what's missing?

26:00

Is there anything else that we haven't covered that your team is going to need to see? What would keep this deal from moving forward? If you implement those three things, you're going to see a massive difference in your B2B sales. If you're loving what you are listening to, make sure that you are subscribed to our channel, click that subscribe button down below. If you love content around marketing, sales, lead generation, all of that good stuff, and remember that domination is not a destination, it's a way of life. Stay winning.