What is B2B and why is it important

The business-to-business model doesn’t exactly function as it would with consumers. You’ll be doing business with other businesses. For example, let’s take a look at grocery stores. Grocery stores are filled to the brim with all sorts of different types of food ranging from produce to baked goods. However, the grocery stores only sell them. Though it should be mentioned that some stores might bake their own pastries. The stores themselves only house these items. They have to conduct B2B relations with other businesses, such as Starbucks, DiGiorno’s, and even farms.

To give you a second example would be a computer company, like Intel, establishing a relationship with another business that has the materials it needs. Despite not being directly involved with the process, the consumers do play a huge role in both parties’ success.

Another way you can participate in B2B operations is to invest in real estate. Real estate investments, particularly in shares, are actually a part of B2B operations. Investing in shares of another company can yield a considerable profit as well as numerous other benefits. But the most lucrative benefit there is to investing in real estate is the tax advantages. Depending on the income you have, did you know that some capital gains can be taxed for up to 20 percent of it? Compared to the traditional income tax, this is exceptionally low, so taxes aren’t going to be too much of an issue.

Three markets within the supply chain

One of the most critical aspects of B2B is learning how the supply chain works and where you stand on it. In the supply chain, there are three different markets. It’s these markets that ultimately dictate how your business will function. Below are the three markets within the supply chain and how they work:

• Primary Market: The primary market is something that’s actually exclusive to the B2B business model. Companies that are situated in the primary sector, like gas companies, for example, are what’s in charge of producing materials.
• Secondary Market: The secondary market is almost as exclusive as the primary market. Companies within this market are what create the materials for others to craft their products. An example of this would be food suppliers and car manufacturers. What sets this market apart from the primary market, however, is that it can also use the B2C model.
• Tertiary Market: The tertiary market is unique as it’s a combination of both B2B and B2C. To put it simply, it caters to both businesses and consumers alike. Think about internet providers, online tutors, and even real estate services.

There’s a lot more to learn about these markets and how you can thrive in them. Be sure to research more about these topics when you can.

Profitable B2B niches to invest in

• General contractors
• Dentists
• Tree removal
• Uber driving
• Fleet managers
• Lawn care
• Plumbing services
• Attorneys
• Paper suppliers

These are just to name a few niches out of many you can make your business about. But since this is the first step, it’s best to take things slow and really think about it. Consider what niche is the most profitable. What is something companies will always need? This is one of the most important questions you need to ask yourself.

A great way to find the best niche for your new business is to center it around your passions. If you’re someone who loves to garden and ensure the grass is always greener, then becoming a landscaping professional is a wonderful option. Or, if you’re someone who’s in technology and fixing things up, becoming a technician is right up your alley.

Conclusion

Whether you’re an established investor or just beginning to explore B2B opportunities, these niches offer compelling potential for long-term growth and profitability. Keep in mind that timing and thorough research are crucial, while these sectors show promise, it’s essential to conduct detailed market analysis and align investments with your expertise and resources.

4 steps to ensure flawless task automation

Here’s a four-step guide on implementing task automation in your workplace.

Identify tasks for automation

Before looking for automation tools, it’s best to determine which tasks you intend to automate in your company. In doing so, you’ll prevent your team from investing in multiple technologies that have the same features, saving you costs in the long run.

For instance, automate tasks like data entering, calendar management, or reports and analytics. Once you identify functions suitable for automation, you’ll find it easier to choose a solution to help your team with their workflows.

Create a detailed plan

Once you’ve identified the tasks that need to be automated, develop a detailed plan on how to automate them. This will help you decide whether or not it’s worth automating and how best to do so. It also helps to consider if legal or ethical issues might arise from using an automation tool for a specific task.

As you create this task automation plan, you may find that some tasks are better suited for automation than others. For example, depending on their complexity, it may make sense to use an app or software program before automating specific tasks. This way, you won’t waste time developing complicated programs that don’t work in real-life situations.

Look for automation tools

Once a plan is outlined, it’s time to look for automation tools to help simplify them. These tools are designed to streamline business processes by reducing manual steps and repetitive tasks. Hence, employees can focus more on their core responsibilities. 

For instance, investing in tools like resource management software allows you to manage the allocation of equipment and human resources efficiently. In addition, this tool makes it easier for line managers to assign projects to their teams without worrying about overloading them with work or underutilizing their skill sets. 

On the other hand, you can also consider using cloud-based services as they provide remote access to data. These services allow users to store files on a central server instead of holding them locally on computers or devices. This way, remote employees can access all their files quickly without worrying about losing them due to viruses or hardware failure.

Develop task automation strategies

Automation tools can be handy when used correctly. However, they can also cause problems if they’re not appropriately tested before implementation. Therefore, before implementing any of these tools in your workplace, it’s necessary to create a testing environment where employees can assess the new functions without affecting their standard workflow. 

Significantly, this step will help them feel more comfortable handling solutions since they already know how it works and what they need to accomplish. Here are three of the common strategies for implementing task automation: 

• Pilot testing: Testing new software or technology before rolling it out company-wide provides many benefits. For one, pilot testing allows you to avoid making significant mistakes while rolling out new technologies or software. It also allows you to see how users react to the new system and find ways to improve their performance. 
• User acceptance testing (UAT): UAT is another strategy to consider when implementing task automation. This process refers to an evaluation period where a user tests a system by completing various tasks using a particular software or technology before releasing it for company use. This way, you won’t have to worry about losing data or experiencing productivity losses due to human errors or software defects. 
• Training employees on new systems: This strategy works great if your company uses a newer type of software that requires less employee effort and more from machines through automating tasks. Training your employees to use new systems allows them to perform their duties efficiently and improve their productivity.

It’s essential to test your new automation tools to minimize downtime during implementation. Hence, you may choose one or two task automation strategies to ensure your tools work effectively.

Conclusion

With the rise of modern technologies, it’s best to take advantage of the latest tools to streamline tasks within your company. Therefore, considering these four steps can help you adopt task automation quickly. 

Once you do so, you can sustain uptime, enabling your staff to deliver your clients’ needs effectively. This way, you can boost your revenue, which gives you a competitive edge.

Make a crisis management contingency plan

In order to protect your business and keep it running in the midst of a crisis, you need to do a lot of risk planning. Having a contingency plan will outline the steps your company should take in the event of a crisis. Your plan should clearly state the measures you are going to take in regards to your employees and business operations.

During a pandemic crisis make sure you include: steps you are taking to protect your employees, what you plan to do if an outbreak happens in your business, ways employees can contact you in cases of emergency and what may happen to your business operations if the business is infected.

Move your business online

Most brick and mortar businesses can become great online businesses with a few tweaks. If you have an in-person trade, this might actually be an opportunity to expand your reach or adapt your service. You can move your scheduled classes online, set up an online store and so on, the only limit is your imagination.

For B2B operating businesses, EL B2B platform is a fantastic way to keep up your business operations running, generate new business deals and identify opportunities completely remotely. A crisis is the final moment when you should utilize all resources in your hands to keep your business afloat.

Adapting to how things are during a crisis, and moving your business online can increase your chances of surviving and even thriving when the crisis is over.

Adopt a work from home policy

Finding alternative work arrangements can really keep your business running during a crisis. Moreover, having a work from home policy offers a variety of benefits to both the remote employee and their employers. If you can introduce a work from home system and create specific guidelines to ensure all employees understand what exactly is required from them when they work remotely. Some of the key elements include: proper technology, secure connection, implementing active communication, setting clear expectations and most importantly – trusting your employees.

Depending on your industry and business, working from home may not be possible to implement. However, if at all possible, consider implementing it and make your company operations swift to be fully remote. Not only will it keep your business running during a pandemic crisis, it will also protect everyone’s health, lower some of your costs and increase the efficiency of your employees.

Step up your cleaning game

If implementing a temporary work from home arrangement, or moving your business online is impossible for you, it is necessary to sanitize your business on the daily. Regardless of how often your business was being cleaned till now, whether it be once a week or once every day, you need to step it up and do it more frequently.

Implement a mandatory rule for employees to disinfect their work stations daily (or maybe even multiple times per day), request sick employees not to come to the office, be flexible with sick leave, and most importantly stack up on soap, disinfectants and hand sanitizer. Because nothing keeps a business running in crisis, like happy and healthy employees.

Take advantage of government help programs

The current crisis is hitting the business world and economy hard, but there is no need for panic because Government help and Small Business Reliefs are on the way!If your business is struggling to gather funds to cover your business expenses due to the crisis, you are not out of luck just yet.

As part of its budget announcement, the governments around the world announced a number of welcome measures to help small businesses cope with coronavirus, including support for those that need to pay statutory sick pay and changes to the benefits system to help employees on zero-hour contracts. The help available varies from Government Grants, to Business Loans, help with tax and VAT, help with salaries and so on… just to help business’ keep running during crisis.

Conclusion

While no one can predict every challenge that might come your way, having solid plans in place and staying flexible can make the difference between shutting down and pushing through. Whether you’re facing your first business crisis or planning ahead for the next one, remember that preparation and adaptability are your best tools. After all, it’s not about avoiding every storm but learning to dance in the rain.

Understand the reason

“The most important thing is to prove you can be useful and add value to their business or role. I send relevant articles and tips and show them what competitors are doing. I’m also upfront and ask directly what it is they’re waiting for and the address this. For example, if they’re waiting for their boss to sign off costs I give them case study data.” – Charli Hunt Proof Content.

Charli has a good point here: you need to dive deeper in their objection. Ask the right questions to get to the source of the hesitation and then work on removing it by offering the solution they need. You need to make them feel comfortable with their decision to move forward.

For instance, Justin Bryan from Winning Ways uses humour to remove the tension: “I’m direct in a comedic way – ‘The only people that come back are Terminator and Jesus you don’t look like either so let me ask you, where did I lose you?’

There’s an underlying objection you need to pull out of them.” 

By the same token, you can also respond like this:

– Great! You should definitely think this over. Tell me though, on a scale of 1-10 where do you lie? 1 being   ‘not for me at all’ and 10 being you wanna get started today.
– They say 6.
– Great! Why didn’t you choose 5?
– They tell you the reason.
– Well what can I do to get you to a 10 today?

Sometimes the obstacle on the way of closing the deal is that you failed to articulate the value or guarantee. In this case you have to reframe the entire conversation and give them the value on a platter. 

However, more often than not, it’s the cost that worries clients. In such situations you can most certainly close the deal by giving them a discount or multiple payment methods they can choose from.

Don’t be pushy

Remember that before becoming an entrepreneur yourself, you were a client too. In fact, you’re still a client to someone. Being pushy, aggravating or annoying will only lead to a dispute and you’ll likely lose the client forever. You don’t want to be a telemarketer, do you?

Don’t hurry it up for them. Let them know you support their decision to think or talk it through with their partners or superiors. By pressuring them you’ll only burn the bridge down. Not to say that they will probably tell about the bad experience they had with you to everyone they know, and that’s more bridges down.

A simple “Looking forward to hearing from you again” and “Have a wonderful day” will take you a lot further than an aggressive attitude. It shows that you respect them as a person and you’re not only interested in their money.

In addition, if during your conversation with them you realise your services or products are not for them, you should point them to the right direction even if that’s your competition. They will most certainly remember your selflessness and return to you at some point.

Follow up

Once you hear the notorious ‘I will think about it’ you can politely ask them how long will that take and when can you reach out to them again. Moreover, you should let them know they can contact you anytime if they have some questions.

This is what Laura Cutress from Laura Rose Creative teaches business owners to do:

“Something I work on frequently with business owners is helping them communicate the VALUE of their offering, not just the price. Something that is very useful after the initial ‘pitch’ is sending over a detailed proposal email/PDF with a little bit more about the offer, complete with testimonials, and product or service breakdown and 3 packages/offers at different price points. This is the perfect follow up opportunity to get them on board with your brand, let them select the right package at a price that works for them, and convert them from a ‘Maybe’ to a ‘HELL YES!’ “

Create urgency

This approach should be taken with a dose of precaution. Because it means you’re selling on price and not on quality.

Nonetheless, it has shown to be quite effective. People are usually inclined towards special deals. It makes them feel… special! Although you’re a salesperson, they want you to be their friend and treat them better than you treat the rest by offering them a good deal.

So, you can create an urgency with an offer that expires soon, a special discount they only get today, or something of the sort.

Move on

Salespeople often have a saying that says it’s always better to go for the early ‘No’. While it is something you don’t really want to hear, it will save you a lot of time, effort and heartache. The truth is, not everyone will or should accept your deal. Getting a ‘no’ is not the end of your business.

Experience shows that “I will think about it” is usually a code for “I’m not interested”. Of course, there are exceptions to this, but in the majority of situations it’s what it means.

You can ask them to choose between ‘yes’ or ‘no’ right away but it can sound too pushy, and you remember what we said about it. The safest option here is to presume it’s a ‘no’. Best case scenario – they might come back with a ‘yes’. Worst case scenario – you were right, you moved on and closed dozens of other deals in the meantime, instead of wasting time waiting on them.

Conclusion

Listen more than you talk, this way you’ll be able to hear their real needs and offer them exactly what you ask. Approach every client with respect and remember that they’re all different. What worked with one, might not work with another. 

Online trade shows alternative to physical trade shows

Online trade shows are a relatively new concept and are still perfecting their functionalities as there are limitations compared to traditional physical trade shows. Some virtual trade show organizers like Hyperfair are trying to enable companies to showcase their business in a virtual reality world resembling the once-popular SecondLife. These shows function like an ordinary online directory and there is some adopting 3D technology. At these virtual business trade shows you don’t have to leave your office, nor be all day at your booth. Rather you can continue with your office work until someone stops at your virtual booth.

B2B platform like a online trade show but active 24/7

B2B platforms, on the other hand, offer the benefits of virtual trade shows with the further advantage of being online constantly, getting real-time notifications when someone is interested in your company and most important of all you can post and bid on business tenders. Small businesses no longer need to waste considerable amounts of money and time to attend physical trade shows or business exhibitions to get new business deals and make sales. By being present on a B2B platform like Enterprise League, small businesses can reduce significantly their cost-per-lead ratio, save time by continuing business as usual operations and both, directly and indirectly, attract potential collaborations.

If small businesses are resourceful they can identify ways to continue their B2B networking and lead generation operations online. B2B platforms are an ideal online alternative to B2B trade shows and exhibitions, which require minimal setup. You can create your company profile within a couple of minutes and immediately begin actively showcasing your offerings as if you would at a business trade show but remotely. Utilizing such a B2B platform as an online B2B trade show will help you save costs, increase and track sales data in real-time. B2B platform’s AI technology has the potential to revolutionize the way physical and remote trade shows work and become a fusion of a constantly active show with quick lead generation and sales benefits.

Conclusion

 Whether you’re hosting digital product launches, running virtual networking events, or creating online showrooms, these digital alternatives aren’t just Band-Aid solutions – they’re powerful tools that can complement or even enhance your B2B marketing strategy. The future of B2B networking might just be a hybrid one, where the best of both worlds comes together to create stronger business connections.