Approaching b2b prospects

The Bridge Group is a SaaS sales consulting firm that we hold in very high regard. They release outstanding sales data which can be found at their site, bridgegroupinc.com. We recently reviewed their “Ultimate Sales Engagement Guide” which is a survey of how modern B2B buyers like to buy. 56% of the respondents in the survey were buyers at SaasS companies with under $20mm in revenue while 10% had over $500mm. 41% of respondents were aged 25 to 35 while 10% were over 55. It’s well worth the read, and below I summarize some of the big take-aways.

Phone may be dead. According to the survey, 51% to 62% of VP’s, Directors, and Managers don’t even have an office phone. Only 56% of total respondents had an office phone.

Leave a VM. For those that do have a phone, they check voicemail 5.6 times per week.

Don’t reach out on the cell. 36% surveyed didn’t want to be contacted on their mobile. 40% said it would be “somewhat positive”. Only 13% took it “extremely positively”. 42% don’t want to be texted. Only 13% would be very positive about getting a text.

LinkedIn is a good method. Linkedin is consistently ranked the 2nd or 3rd most preferred way to be contacted. 72% accepted customized requests. Only 14% hate custom requests. 69% respond to InMail. Only 16% wont. LinkedIn is also the most likely medium on which someone will respond to posted content.

Problem solving. What media are you most likely to consume to solve business problems? 19% said whitepapers, 20% said webinars, 21% review sites, 19% 1-to-1 video, 10% ebooks, 11% forums.

Email is preferred. 40% of execs prefer to be contacted over email. 51% of ops roles prefer email.

The survey ends with great advice: “meet the buyer where they are. Ops person or engineer with two monitors doing deep ‘flow’ work? Don’t interrupt with a call or text. Sales leader who switches context every ten minutes and lives out of their phone? Cell calls and text messages can work.”

The full report is well worth the read and has charts and graphs for every metric. Again visit bridgegroupinc.com to get it.

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