How To Sell Big-Ticket Items to the B2B Market

With all of the day-to-day retail exposure, it can be easy to forget that big businesses also have a lot of money to spend.
In fact, there is a huge niche within the wholesale market that deals exclusively with the value-added resale of high-priced non-industrial equipment to large corporations. Insiders will often refer to this niche as “The Channel”.
Of course if you’ve ever tried your hand at selling big-ticket items to the B2B crowd, you know that competition can be pretty tough.
When an RFP (Request for Proposal) goes out, first priority usually goes to the brand with pre-existing relationships. After that, everyone else is forced to compete on price.
Trust me. You don’t want to play that game.
Which side will you be on?
Because B2B sales are generally larger and harder to come by, many new companies will simply go for the big one-time sale as opposed to focusing on the relationship building. This can be a deadly mistake.
Many marketing experts will argue that it can cost 5 times more to sell to a first-time customer, than it would to make a repeat sale. This is especially true when it comes to B2B selling.
In the business world, impulse purchases are not as common as they would be if you were dealing directly with consumers. Instead, you have to navigate around gatekeepers, decision-making committees, and a sophisticated infrastructure that was designed just to keep you out.
But once you’ve made that first sale, the same barriers that blocked you from this customer will become your protection against competitors. So my suggestion would be to forget the bigger sale for now, and instead focus on the relationship-building. If you can handle the pain of delayed gratification, your rewards will be much greater down the road.
Case in point:
Your company sells expensive email servers.
Company X doesn’t want to buy one right now, but you know that they’ll need to replace theirs at a random date sometime within the next 3 years. You just don’t know when.
While your competitors are spending lots of money, time and energy advertising their email servers to Company X’s deaf ears, you need a different approach to rise above the noise.
Rather than copying everyone else, try getting your foot in the door with a very small initial purchase. But this purchase should also have a recurring revenue model that allows for a repetitive transaction that occurs on a regular basis.
The more purchases the client makes, the stronger your vendor-client relationship will become. Repeated contact builds trust and loyalty over time.
Finally, when the time comes to make a big-ticket purchase, Company X will face the choice of either going with an established supplier (you), or taking a risk with an unknown vendor (the other guys).
This is the power of using a loss leader.
How can you apply this to your industry? What kind of a low-price/high-value loss leader can you offer to get your foot in the door with B2B account? How can you turn this product or service into a repetitive purchasing model?
We’d love to hear your ideas. Please leave your comments in the form below.
About The Author:
Storagepipe Solutions has been providing e-mail archive software and online server backups since 2001. They also offer a wide range of turnkey online backup system reseller programs that allow technology wholesalers, VARs, and other companies to get their foot in the door & drive customer loyalty.