Business growth needs to be a constant process; it doesn’t only represent your success but also helps retain sustainability. In order to remain relevant and competitive in your market, your company needs growth.
If you are not growing, other companies can get hold of your market share and customers. If you don’t want to see your prospects and existing customers going for products and services your competitors are offering, you need growth.
Several companies lack the knowledge essential for business development, process improvement, and all effort toward achieving growth, expansion, and financial stability. Growth is a tough road to walk on but essential for your future endeavors.
If you are also looking for business growth in 2021 but unaware of how to take wise steps, these different growth strategies can make your path easier. Here are some of the fastest-growing B2B growth trends that can turn out to be your key to growth in the coming years.
Here are some B2B growth trends to ensure growth in 2021
1) Sell What Adds Value to Customers
In the last few years, good relationships between sellers and brands have been effective in generating sales. More companies started doing business based on value, whereas it was mostly about profit and customer satisfaction. Today, sellers can understand the market for a product they are getting from a brand company and place orders accordingly. Besides, giving honest reviews about the product’s sales performance in the market would help producers build value out of products.
However, you also need to be one step ahead of those that replicate innovations; you can only differentiate your business if you deliver value to customers. Buyers have reported that several times their contact with sellers does not bring value. Here’s the opportunity for your products and services; deliver value!
2) Take Care of Existing Customers
According to B2B International, 45 to 50% of companies lose their customers every five years; this can cause a lot of damage to a business. Your current customers are a massive part of the system that runs your business, making it pretty obvious to build and maintain strong relations with them.
You need a team that can handle customer/client support for problems/queries concerning products or services and works as a common medium of connection for both customers and your other teams. Apart from that, the team can help customers fully utilize self-service portals your company offers to customers. Basically, they can help you fulfill all the promises you make while selling a product; this adds value to your products or services. All of this is important if you want to retain your customer base, increase upsell possibilities, and reduce churn.
3) Use Multiple Mediums for Sales
Professionals working in the B2B eCommerce might be familiar with this; however, there is a lot that we need to direct our vision toward. Humans are getting into this habit of shopping online and getting our items delivered to wherever want.
This is now a challenge for B2B sellers; they need to provide the same customer experiences at different interaction stages. For example, a customer begins a conversation over an email, and the customer is interested in your products. That customer should not face any delay in taking the conversation further to other departments/partners, and when they connect with a different representative, they expect the person to have complete information they have already provided.
Therefore, keep your teams prepared for sales through almost all mediums; use emails, phone calls, social media marketing partners, and keep them synchronized to deliver a memorable customer experience.
4) Pay Attention to the Needs of the Generation Z
Small and medium-sized businesses should also understand Generation Z and their expectations for products and services; find ways to sell them easily. This generation is using the world wide web from a very young age and will be in its adulthood in 2020. Generation Z is likely to account for around 40% of the buyers in the years coming ahead. A big reason to direct your focus toward them.
While many people are using the internet on their smartphones, which has become quite a popular thing, still several transactions occur on desktops, especially in B2B deals. Still, 48% of B2B buyers will use their smartphones to learn about the products before purchasing them.
This generation is way more cost-conscious than millennials. Before making a decision, they would want to touch and experience products and services, respectively, and like to go through your company’s multiple touchpoints. In short, they want to ensure whatever they purchase is of high-quality.
5) Outsource Highly-Repetitive & Labour-Intensive Functions
There are many processes that you might not be able to handle as a business owner simply because you don’t know that. However, several owners still try to manage some of the functions that often lead them to lose efficiency in those that are expert in.
To get over these issues, you may join hands with back-office outsourcing companies; this option is better than recruiting and onboarding an in-house team. Outsourcing companies can cost you less than hiring, and their professionals will help you become up to date in your industry.
Accounting services for businesses are mandatory. Still, due to a lack of expertise or shortage of skilled accountants, you, as a business owner, might face issues in handling your business finances. Accounting outsourcing is another growing trend that emerged in recent years and is here to stay. Consider outsourcing your business accounting services to a reliable provider trusted by many in the accounting industry. This way, you will not get your accounting system streamlined, improve accounting processes, and embrace the latest practices, leading your business toward compliance assurance and growth.
6) Digital Transformation
We frequently get to hear about new internet-powered technologies emerging now and then in order to make our lives easier. You, too, can leverage the already growing wave of digital transformation and get new technologies in your business to grow.
Digital transformation in business is mostly about enhancing operational efficiency by improving processes. Here are a few ways you can take help from;
Financial Accounting: You may use artificial intelligence and other analytics tools to compare financial performance, predict revenue, financial budgeting, projections, etc.
Marketing: You can use email marketing to send your message across masses as well as one-to-one emails with relevant offers to customers you have a shopping history of.
Sales: You can use CRM software to be updated about orders and leads; you can also keep a follow-up on customers that you have not heard for some time.
7) Data-Driven Decision Making
In most business environments, decision-makers make decisions based on gut instincts and the opinions of their company’s key people. However, this is not the most effective way to reach a sound decision; you may need data for better decisions.
For instance, say your customer relationship manager comes to you with a superb idea that can help reduce churn; they suggest that if you add a chat feature on your website, customers won’t cancel their orders when delivery gets delayed. But you might want to know if this is effective or not. You will need to get customer feedback (data) to ensure the idea worked or not.
8) Make Security & Privacy Your Top Priority
Today’s digitally connected consumer wants his privacy and data to be secured. However, only 57% of B2B companies ensured that they meet such demands. We often get news about data breaches; in times of cybercrime and data theft, it can be difficult for you to gain the trust of those with whom you do business. Contact details, such as name, phone number, and email address, are sensitive information that you must protect to become a trusted partner for other companies.
Check these points to improve your data security and privacy measures and be prepared for 2021:
Get your website an HTTPS certificate
Invest in a reliable CRM system
Eliminate any personal contact information that can be sensitive, but you don’t need
Have a data protection officer in place to ensure you comply with the GDPR
Conclusion
We live in a highly competitive world where you need consistent growth in order to survive for long. Growth should be your top priority, and you need to learn new ways to achieve it. It is difficult but not impossible to obtain; therefore, get help from the above-shared ideas and B2B growth trends.
All in all, these points direct business owners’ attention toward three significant elements of growth – human resources, technology, and processes. Once you start making full use of all these and maintain synchronization between the three, you will experience growth.
As we are entering another new year, it is vital to stay one step ahead of your competitors, and it would be best if you stay ahead of customers too. Use these growth trends to start your business growth and make 2021 an impressively profitable year for your business.