B2B Sales Explained

B2B sales is a huge industry. Globally, B2B payments were worth $83 trillion in 2024 – but it’s predicted to reach up to $124 trillion in 2028, according to a report by ResearchAndMarkets.com.

What Does B2B Sales Mean?

Business-to-business sales describes the process by which a company sells products or services to another business, instead of to individual consumers.

Because it involves selling to businesses, the process can be long and complicated. It often involves large buying groups and may require sign-off from different decision makers along the way – but the trade-off is that the average value of these B2B deals can be significantly larger than what’s seen in B2C.

B2B vs B2C Sales: What’s the Difference?

There’s a big difference between selling directly to customers (B2C) and selling directly to businesses (B2B).

Some of the key differences are:

• B2B sales often targets much smaller, niche audiences.
  Your consumer product might be a good fit for millions of people, but a B2B service may be so specific that it’s only really suitable for a few hundred business customers.
• B2B has longer sales cycles.
  A consumer might spot something they want and buy it online instantly, but businesses often have to get approval from their finance department at the very least. More typically, these decisions have to be approved by other decision-makers within the company, which leads to longer sales cycles.
• B2B has multiple stakeholders.
  For a consumer purchase, you might run the idea past your partner or friends – but in business, there are usually more people you need to check this decision with. Often, the bigger the B2B purchase, the more stakeholders need to be involved.
• B2B buyers are really informed.
  Impulse purchases aren’t as common in B2B because every purchase impacts the bottom line, and there is more oversight of how money is spent. That also means that buyers conduct their research before speaking to a salesperson, so you enter the sales negotiation with prospects who are much more informed than if you were selling to the average consumer.
• B2B customer relationships can last years.
  Clients could buy your product or service for years, which is rare to see in the consumer market.
• B2B payments may not be settled upfront.
  Instead, business payments could involve recurring billing, invoices, and multi-year contracts.

Main Types of B2B Sales

The phrase ‘B2B sales’ is too broad to cover entire industries, so often it’s broken down into different types of sales, which can vary by industry.

Supplier and Producer Sales

This type of B2B sales job is found in businesses that act as suppliers or producers, which means they sell supplies or raw materials to other businesses. For example, it could be a chemical supplier that sells chemicals to a paint company or a textiles company that makes workplace uniforms.

Supplier and producer sales often involve selling in bulk, with repeated and consistent orders. You’ll often see bulk discounts offered with this type of B2B selling.

Partner or Distribution Sales

Many businesses don’t sell their products or services directly to other businesses, but instead sell through a partner, distributor, reseller, or wholesaler. They, in turn, sell to a customer. A good example of this is a food producer that sells to a distributor, who in turn sells ingredients to restaurants, or the way that software providers, like Microsoft, are sold via authorized resellers.

B2B partner or distribution sales is often about building a good relationship between supplier and partner/distributor. The supplier has no control over how well the partner sells their product, but it gives them the opportunity to reach markets they couldn’t penetrate alone and lets them scale up much faster than by building their own field sales team.  

B2B SaaS and Service Provider Sales

When you think of B2B SaaS, you probably think of Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft, or Slack. These software-as-a-service companies sell software via a subscription, rather than something that is bought once and installed.

This kind of selling is often grouped with B2B service sales because they both involve selling services instead of a physical product, though some businesses may sell or rent equipment, like an IT service provider, for example.

Both types of businesses also work with clients on an ongoing basis, typically through annual contracts or monthly subscriptions that they want to renew.

OEM and White Label Sales

You’ll often see B2B OEM sales in manufacturing and other industries where they produce a product – or technology – that they sell to other businesses who will integrate it or rebadge it into their own offering.

For example, a manufacturer may sell to an equipment OEM, or a fintech company may sell an API that’s embedded into another app.

With this type of selling, the end user never sees the brand behind the original item and can’t buy directly from the manufacturer.

Enterprise Sales

B2B enterprise sales is found across every industry, but is considered a different type of selling because the strategies used are different. It involves selling to large, enterprise organizations and requires strong negotiation and relationship-building skills.

Public Sector Sales

While not strictly a business, many companies will employ public sector sellers who specialize in getting organizations like governments, healthcare systems, universities and beyond to buy their product or service.

This type of B2B sales is distinct because the process may be totally different. Often, a supplier has to respond to a tender or a request for proposal (RFP), follow firm procurement guidelines and ensure strict compliance.

You’ll find this kind of sales in industries like construction, defense, healthcare, SaaS, professional services, and more.

Inside vs Outside Sales

Another way to divide B2B sales is to split the role into inside and outside sales. This distinction describes the way that a sales rep works, and how their day-to-day activities may differ.

What is Inside Sales?

Inside sales describes selling that’s done remotely. If a rep sells over the phone, via video meetings, or over email, it’s inside sales.

It’s the most common type of B2B sales because it’s efficient; reps can make hundreds of calls or send hundreds of messages, which is often made easier by the right tech stack.

Most days, an inside sales rep may have to:

• Prospect to find new leads by reaching out to as many potential prospects as possible.
• Qualify leads to ensure they’re pursuing the most relevant and appropriate opportunities.
• Run product demos to showcase features and benefits to leads.
• Follow-up with leads by emailing, calling, sending LinkedIn messages, and more.
• Close deals and negotiate terms using tech like e-signature tools to finalize agreements.

What is Outside Sales?

The other type of B2B sales is called outside sales, and it describes the reps that primarily sell face-to-face. This role involves travelling to clients and developing a relationship with in-person interactions.

Outside sales works well when a business has a complex solution, requires a large investment, or has a complicated sales process. The personal touch can be invaluable when it comes to securing favorable terms and building long-term relationships.

The typical day of an outside sales rep is more varied and could see them doing a range of activities, including:

• Meeting clients and prospects in-person.
• Attending networking events to find new leads or meet key decision makers.
• Presenting or demonstrating products at a client’s office.
• Negotiating and closing a deal in a face-to-face meeting.

What is The B2B Sales Process?

The B2B sales process can be lengthy and complicated, but it broadly follows the same steps.

Prospecting

You can’t sell without prospects, which is why prospecting is the very first step in B2B sales.

This process involves identifying, researching, and engaging potential customers to find new opportunities.

Cold calling is an effective way to prospect, but the low conversion rates mean you must dial a lot of calls before you reach someone who’s willing to hear your pitch.

Reps may also try social selling, with a particular focus on LinkedIn for outreach. The platform allows you to send InMail messages or connection requests to people who look like ideal decision makers at relevant businesses.

Other modern prospecting tactics include networking at events or using website visitor identification software to find out which companies are already browsing your domain.

The goal of prospecting is to find a potential customer. When someone says they’re interested, they become a lead and are moved to the next stage of the buying process.

Sales Call

The lead might be handed over to another B2B sales rep for a more detailed follow-up. This initial sales call does much of the heavy lifting at this stage of the sales process.

Research and Discovery

Before they dial, a sales rep needs to spend a fair amount of energy researching the business. They need to learn more about what the prospective customer does, so they can tailor their pitch accordingly.

A key part of this stage is discovery, which is when the rep asks the lead a series of questions to help their understanding.

The kinds of things that are asked during a discovery sales call are:

• What are your biggest challenges at the moment, and how do you solve it?
• How satisfied are you with this solution?
• What do your existing processes look like, and how big is your team?
• What goals are you working towards at the moment?
• What does success look like for you?
• Are you the decision-maker for this kind of thing? Is there anyone else we need to involve in the decision-making process?

The research and discovery process is an essential part of B2B sales. It’s when you can really understand how your solution can help the client. But it’s also where you’re able to learn more about how to shape your pitch.

Qualification

During the call, the sales rep will also qualify the lead to make sure that they’re a good fit.

Answers to questions about business size, decision-making processes and current needs will help them to qualify the prospect. But they may also use a lead scoring system for a more quantitative way to assess their suitability.

It’s important to qualify a lead as soon as possible, because you don’t want to waste any valuable time selling to someone who can’t use your product or service properly – or who’s unable to make the decision themselves.

Pitch/Proposal and Demo

Towards the end of the call, it’s time to deliver the pitch – or get their commitment to attend a demo.

At this stage, the sales rep needs to remember everything that has been discussed before and pivot their pitch so that it feels personalized and relevant.

It’s the main opportunity to demonstrate you’ve listened to the lead, and you understand how your business can help with their challenges.

Objection Handling

B2B sales reps often face objections, and objection handling is a skill in itself.

If you can overcome sales objections well, you’ll win over the prospect and the conversation will naturally end with a commitment to taking the next step. But if you ignore objections and try to push the person to conclude the conversation with a yes, their concerns won’t be alleviated, and they’ll end up ignoring your follow-ups.

Over time, sales reps develop an arsenal of objection resolutions. But before they reach this level of experience, they will listen to the objection, acknowledge it and propose a reasonable solution. If this goes well, it’ll be time to close the deal.

Negotiation and Close

For many, the most exciting part of the B2B sales process is when you get their commitment to proceed and close the deal.

There are a range of closing techniques that work well, including:

• The presumptive close, where you assume the prospect is ready to buy and ask if they want you to prepare the paperwork instead of a stiffer question like ‘would you like to proceed with the contract?’
• The alternative/double bind close, where you give them two options to pick from.
• The recommendation close, where you recommend something like the prospect sitting through a demo with a specific salesperson.

When getting the close, it’s essential that the sales rep discusses all the remaining steps before the call ends. That includes understanding which stakeholders need to approve a decision, and how to finalize the deal.

The Process Varies by Business

Of course, the process is different for each business and industry. It may involve more steps – and many more conversations – before the right decision-maker is reached and they decide to proceed.

How Do You Measure B2B Sales Performance?

Another important aspect of B2B sales is measuring performance.

There are a range of sales metrics that are typically measured, but some of the most important include:

• New leads in pipeline.
  This is a signal of potential future revenue and a measure of how effective your prospecting is. If your pipeline is low, you won’t hit your sales targets.
• Conversion rate.
  This helps you understand how successful the team is at turning prospects into customers. When you know your conversion rate, it helps you understand how big your pipeline needs to be.
• Retention rate.
  This metric is a measure of customer loyalty, good product/service fit, and effective post-sale service.
• Annual contract value (ACV).
  This number tells you how much average revenue you generate and can help you to identify which types of customers are high value.
• Customer lifetime value (CLV).
  This is another measure of customer loyalty and satisfaction, as higher CLVs often mean repeat business and upsell or cross-sell success.

Common B2B Sales Challenges

No matter the industry or business, there are some shared challenges that are unique to B2B sales. 

Long Sales Cycles

Perhaps the biggest challenge when selling in B2B is the length and complexity of the typical sales cycle.

There are many reasons why this is an issue:

• Long sales cycles mean a lot of resources are needed to nudge buyers through each stage.
• It takes longer for businesses to generate revenue.
• It makes it hard to forecast accurately, because prospects may take an unfeasibly long time to convert.

It is possible to shorten the sales cycle by doing this like focusing on qualifying leads more effectively, streamlining internal processes, improving customer communication – and by targeting warm leads, which are shown to convert at higher rates.

Hard-To Reach Decision Makers

A typical B2B purchase involves multiple stakeholders and decision makers. When prospecting, it can be hard to identify the actual decision makers, and reps may lose time speaking to the wrong contacts.

Furthermore, gatekeepers like receptionists and assistants may be an impenetrable barrier that prevents you speaking directly to a decision maker. But thankfully, tools like LinkedIn are more open and offer an opportunity to speak directly with business leaders if needed.

If you can use tools like website visitor identification to find out which companies are already interested in you and combine this with contact details of decision makers at the same company, you may be able to circumvent this challenge.

High Competition

Even the most niche of businesses have competitors, which is another factor that makes B2B sales challenging.

But it can be overcome by being the first to pitch to a prospective buyer.

If you use website visitor identification software, you can spot when companies are researching your solutions long before they reach out to you – or your competitors. This kind of insight helps sales reps become the first to call.

And often, being first is enough. That’s because 35% to 50% of sales go to the vendor that reaches out first, Spotio reports.

Price Sensitivity

B2B sales often involve higher value transactions than consumer sales, and with that can come price sensitivity. After all, every expenditure takes money away from the bottom line.

But price sensitivity typically comes when a prospect doesn’t buy into the value of your solution.

If you’re facing this challenge, you haven’t demonstrated your value well enough.

Instead of running to slash costs, you should focus on communicating the long-term value of your product or solution and the ROI it can generate. Strong sales reps will confidently jump back into the discovery stage to uncover the missed needs or objections and try again.

Successful B2B Sales Strategies

There’s a variety of B2B sales strategies to tap into, but there are a few that you’re most likely to see across a range of industries.

Cold Calling

This type of B2B sales strategy allows reps to have live conversations with decision makers. It can get to the answer much faster, which is valuable – even if the answer is ‘no’.

Cold calling cuts through the digital noise, builds immediate and personal rapport, and can be a cost-effective way to fuel your sales pipeline.

But just 2% of cold calls convert into sales, Cognism found.

Warm Calling

A more effective form of phone sales is warm calling, which converts at a higher rate. This strategy involves identifying which companies are already interested in your business and then targeting those.

And because it’s easier to sell to warm leads, a sales rep needs to make fewer calls to generate the same – or more – revenue.

Social Selling

Social selling leverages the power of social media platforms like LinkedIn to help B2B sales reps find decision makers and contact them directly.

But social selling is more than sending a bunch of connection requests and generic messages. And it’s not social media marketing, either.

It’s about creating a personal, one-to-one connection with your prospect, so they can see you as the resident expert. You can build this relationship by sharing relevant content with them, introducing them to your network, and engaging with their activity.

Referral Networking

Did you know that 91% of B2B buyers said they would be happy to provide referrals for a product they think is good and have gained ROI from?

This kind of referral networking is powerful in B2B sales, and can convert three to five times higher, Demand Sage found. But only one in 10 sales reps ask for referrals.

If you want to try this sales strategy, it’s as simple as reaching out to the customers that you already have a strong relationship with and asking if they’d consider referring you to any of their contacts who might be in the market for your products or services.

Account-Based Sales

This sales strategy targets the whole business, rather than individual tactics. It places a higher emphasis on quality engagements across several platforms instead of quick strategies like cold calling and involves influencing all stakeholders within a buying group, not just the final decision-makers.

It’s a labor-intensive strategy, which means it’s more appropriate for high-value accounts.

It also requires the sales team to align with the marketing team for a coordinated campaign of engagement. Both teams will create personalized content, but the sales rep is the one who reaches out to build a personal relationship.

How to Spot Overlooked Sales Opportunities

Even the best sales strategies and the most effective reps miss opportunities, especially when potential buyers browse your website but never fill out a form or get in touch.

But with website visitor identification software like Lead Forensics, you can uncover which companies are visiting your site, what pages they’re looking at, and how engaged they are.

With that insight, your sales team can:

• Identify warm, high-intent leads earlier in the buying journey
• Prioritize outreach to accounts that are already showing interest
• Start more meaningful conversations with the right companies, faster

If you’re building a B2B sales process and want to fuel it with smarter, more targeted outreach, it’s time to try Lead Forensics. Book a demo to start your free trial and discover which B2B sales opportunities you’re overlooking.