If the B2B sales landscape were a chessboard, which piece would you be? Would you be one of the pawns, or would you follow the more versatile path of the clever queen who always uses the best sales strategy? Anyone can dream of sales success. But only very few strategically close deals consistently across the board.

• What strategies do successful salespeople use to get ahead quickly?
• Which sales strategy best helps teams to close more deals in B2B sales?
• Which traits distinguish a very good sales manager from a good one when dealing with potential customers?
• Why is artificial intelligence the ace in the hole?

These 10 effective tips for the best sales strategy will help you close more deals in SaaS sales.

Tip #1: Start Strategically

Gut feeling may be useful in a card game. In B2B and SaaS sales, strategic action is the key to closing deals as quickly as possible. Top performers in SaaS sales don't improvise. They always have a plan and a contingency plan firmly embedded in their playbook. This allows salespeople to respond better and faster to challenges in the sales cycle.

Although charm can go a long way, potential buyers want reliable and competent answers to their questions. When the next deal is on the line, well-prepared sales reps have effective solutions at the ready. They prepare in advance for their calls and demos, and get the best possible information about current progress in the sales cycle before picking up the phone or hitting the send button.

Tip #2 for The Best Sales Strategy: Personal Customer Approach

Personalized communication is another crucial component of the best sales strategy. The most successful salespeople know that addressing customers personally can be decisive in deciding the outcome of a deal. But this opportunity is often lost, especially in digitalized sales cycles.

Standardized sales formats such as cold emails are tempting because they save time. But some deals require more commitment and personalized support, particularly those involving important key accounts. The ability to reach and convince customers on a personal level is key to success in the sales game.

Instead of following a pre-written script and addressing each prospect with a one-size-fits-all solution, successful sales reps create individual offers with a personal touch, especially for high-priority deals. Sales reps know that small nuances in the sales strategy - such as the choice of the right contact person - can be decisive for a deal.

Tip #3: Turn Interest into Discussions

Salespeople who are aware of individual customer needs are a decisive step ahead. Building an understanding of potential clients means having an open ear for the needs of your customers, whatever these may be. Active listening and taking questions or concerns seriously help to establish an honest dialog.

Potential buyers expect real added value and solutions to their specific problems. Well-prepared sales staff have answers to each of their customer’s questions. They understand subjective challenges and can explain why their product serves as a solution.

The best sales strategy focuses on conveying the added benefit in their proposed solutions. Sales reps offer effective solutions with a personalized touch when the outcome of the next deal depends on it. The best sales reps create trust with their fact-oriented, reliable demeanor.

Tip #4 for The Best Sales Strategy: 360° View of The Customer

Listening and maintaining a two-way dialog is often not enough to be sufficiently informed about customer needs. High-performing sales reps strive to learn as much as possible about a prospect through all available channels.

The challenge here is that in the fast-paced daily sales routine, sales managers have little to no time for research. Which communication channels have a particularly high response rate for a customer? Which communication channels do they prefer? What challenges is the prospect currently facing? The earlier sales reps have access to detailed information about their potential customers, the better they can adapt their sales strategy and find the best approach.

Good data management in CRMs such as Hubspot and Pipedrive is essential for maintaining a 360-degree view of the customer. All available customer journey data is collected here. Surveys show, however, that the visualization of the enormous amount of data in CRMs overwhelms sales reps on a daily basis. That's why more and more sales teams are using AI-guided selling software which clearly displays only the most relevant data.

Tip #5 for The Best Sales Strategy: Strategically Prioritize Deals

5.1. Bet on the Right Cards With Deals to Watch

Truly successful salespeople focus on quality rather than quantity when it comes to their leads. With a focus on the deals to watch, B2B sales teams direct all their energy to the most promising deals. And when it’s time to close the deal, the payout will show prioritizing pays off. Yet, what sounds simple is not always so easy to implement in everyday sales. The best deals in the pipeline are quickly lost in the multitude of open deals that need to be processed.

In fact, most sales reps only ever have the deals they’re currently working on on their radar. In an ordinary sales organization, that's about 20 percent of all deals in the sales pipeline. The remaining 80 percent - many big fish included - are often lost before they even come into view. In order to keep an eye on deals to watch, successful B2B sales reps rely on AI-supported sales technologies.

They know that they can no longer safely rely on their own gut feeling and intuition in Sales 4.0. Instead, successful sales reps rely on automated processes and objective AI analyses for data-driven selling.

5.2. Disqualifying Bad Deals

In any sales team, reps waste a lot of time on deals that never pan out. Proactive players in the B2B sales game are not afraid to immediately disqualify mediocre deals. After all, the longer deals remain in the pipeline, the more time and money they eat up. But how do successful sales employees know which deals they can disregard with a clear conscience?

AI-powered sales software knows all the rules of the game, which can vary greatly depending on the deal. One example unique to a particular deal is the average length of a sales cycle. The AI compares this with any moves already made by the sales staff and calculates win probabilities on this basis. Deals that will probably never materialize are then given a very low probability of winning.

Tip #6: Use Daily To-Do Lists as a Match Playbook

One of the smartest moves for self-optimization in B2B Sales is working with a to-do list. This may sound simple and trivial, but creating a meaningful list of key activities to focus on is anything but simple in the highly complex world of B2B sales.

The challenge: Sales reps find it difficult to recognize what belongs on the to-do list without automated processes. The necessary data for the best sales strategy is usually available in CRMs such as Hubspot or Pipedrive. However, the visualization of this data is not tailored to the needs of sales reps.

What reps need is an automated evaluation of all deals in the pipeline, which is then reduced to the most relevant key figures and presented in a user-friendly manner. With the AI-guided selling software’s Task Manager, sales reps can see all the important data on their deals at a glance, including the winning algorithm they can use a playbook. Within the dashboard, sales reps can easily create a to-do list encompassing the most urgent activities they need on their agenda to win.

Tip #7: Position Players for Success Based on Individual Strengths

One of the main challenges for sales teams is the strategic positioning of sales reps fit for the right deals. Are all sales managers in the optimal position on the field to deliver the best performance?

New team members in particular should be positioned to succeed fresh out of the gate. Sales reps at the beginning of their careers aren’t often immediately part of the starting lineup when dealing with the most important key accounts - or the playoff opponent in the sales game. Nevertheless, the strengths and weaknesses of sales reps often aren’t taken into account in the best possible way in many sales organizations.

Match Sales Reps with the Appropriate Verticals

In order to make the best use of the available resources, sales managers need to identify the verticals in which the individual sales reps are best suited for. For example, if a sales rep has niche-specific industry knowledge, he or she knows very well what challenges potential customers typically face. This means that he or she can usually convince them better than his or her colleagues. Strategic decisions such as these improve the chances for success and motivate the team.

AI-powered evaluations of sales teams’ daily activities help heads of sales establish the right sales structure.

Tip #8: Keeping an Eye on Risk Level and Following Up

Especially when a lot of time has already been invested in a sales process, losing sight of a deal can become expensive. In fact, the follow-up that is often critical for sales success is frequently neglected because sales reps have their hands full with other day-to-day business.

When sales reps miss their follow-up window, many deals are lost that were often already as good as won. But how do sales reps recognize these critical moments in real-time? The truth is sales reps often don't even know if and when a prospect opened the last email with an offer.

AI-guided selling software recognizes when these key windows and events take place and outputs a risk level for each deal. In this way, sales staff can see whether and to what extent the risk of missing a deal increases. Depending on which deals are at risk, agile salespeople can take countermeasures in good time - or simply cross these deals off their list.

Tip #9 for The Best Sales Strategy: Take Home The Win With Team Spirit

Players who follow a play-by-play approach throughout the match make it farther faster. These players take each round one at a time, don’t dwell on short-term losses and have nothing else but their own goals in mind. Does this formula also work for B2B sales?

Reality usually looks different. An analogy for series junkies (warning, spoiler alert!): The characters of the much-talked-about series Squid Game also had to learn that each round can be deadly. Although in the story only one person will survive the games, it is the one who relies on fair play and always takes care of weaker players who wins in the end. Unlike in Squid Game, sales reps do face danger to life and limb on a daily basis. However, sales teams do better when they pull together.

Truly successful salespeople seek out sparring partners to better themselves. They know that behind each one of their successes is the support of a strong team. Sales employees who actively ask for help as team players and share their experience with others benefit from the synergy that helps to generate more deals.

Tip #10: AI Guided Selling Software Changes The Game

Many particularly successful sales employees already have a powerful ace up their sleeve: Artificial Intelligence. Predictive analytics by AI make data-driven selling possible. With the software's Task Manager, sales reps always know the most effective activities to quickly advance within the sales cycles of the most important deals. As a result, teams see higher revenue numbers and close more deals across the board. Plus, with machine learning, head of sales have realistic sales forecasts at their fingertips.

Especially since 2020, industry experts have made one thing clear: Without the implementation of AI-supported sales technologies as part of Sales 4.0, sales teams will soon disappear. Even today, technologies such as AI-guided selling software have become a gamechanger and lend a decisive competitive advantage in B2B and SaaS sales.

Whether sales organizations adapt to the new challenges of the digitized sales landscape will determine who remains a player in B2B and SaaS sales in the long term.

Which of These Strategies Can You Use to Increase Your Success in B2B Sales?

The best sales strategy always focuses on the most important activities. But there is no one yellow brick road when it comes to B2B sales.

The strategies and tips mentioned above can serve as a guideline for sales reps to assess their own processes and strategies and optimize them if necessary. Which of the suggested tips are suitable for your own way of working and sales organization? And which of your processes could you optimize with AI?

If you would like to learn more about the possibilities of AI-optimized B2B sales, our free eBook provides a summary of how AI-guided selling can help salespeople go from performing well to performing very well, and how to get the most out of their sales. Download the eBook as PDF.