Tips for Achieving B2B Success

Over the past 15 years, I’ve had the privilege of leading global digital and performance marketing teams. Along the way, I’ve seen top global B2B companies stumble when it comes to executing their marketing strategies. Here are the top 10 mistakes I’ve seen—and my tips for turning them into opportunities for growth. 1. Mistake: Skipping Buyer Personas Without clear personas, your messaging will miss the mark. Tip: Invest in detailed persona research to tailor your strategies. 2. Mistake: Neglecting a Robust Content Strategy Content is king, but too often, companies either produce sporadic content or miss the mark entirely. Tip: Develop a content strategy that aligns with each stage of the buyer’s journey. 3. Mistake: Disconnected Sales & Marketing Teams When sales and marketing operate in silos, the customer experience suffers. Tip: Foster a culture of collaboration with shared goals, regular communication, and joint planning sessions. 4. Mistake: Relying on Gut Over Data Marketing should be driven by insights, not instincts. Ignoring data can lead to missed opportunities and wasted budget. Tip: Let analytics guide your decisions and optimize in real time. 5. Mistake: Treating SEO as an Afterthought SEO is often overlooked or undervalued, leading to poor organic visibility. Tip: Make SEO a foundational element of your strategy. Focus on keyword research, on-page optimization, and building authoritative content that drives traffic over time. 6. Mistake: Poor Lead Nurturing Capturing leads is just the start; nurturing is key. Tip: Use personalized, automated workflows to guide leads through the funnel. 7. Mistake: Inefficient Paid Media Spend Overspending or under-optimizing paid campaigns wastes resources. Tip: Focus on high-performing channels and regularly adjust your strategy. 8. Mistake: Overlooking Mobile Optimization With more decision-makers using mobile devices, a non-optimized experience can be a deal-breaker. Tip: Ensure that your website, emails, and content are fully mobile-responsive. 9. Mistake: Underutilizing Social Proof In B2B, trust is everything. Yet, many companies fail to leverage testimonials, case studies, and reviews. Tip: Actively gather and display social proof across all touchpoints. 10. Mistake: “Set and Forget” Marketing The digital landscape changes fast; staying static won’t work. Tip: Continuously audit and refine your campaigns for better results. Avoiding these common pitfalls isn’t just about fixing mistakes—it’s about unlocking the full potential of your digital and performance marketing efforts. By being proactive and strategic, B2B companies can not only avoid these traps but turn them into stepping stones for success. #DigitalMarketing #B2BMarketing #PerformanceMarketing #Strategy #GrowthHacking #SEO #ContentMarketing #LeadGeneration

I still remember the nerves before closing my first B2B deal. Not a small coaching package. Not a one-off speaking gig. A corporate contract that changed everything for me. And truth is — it wasn’t easy. I doubted if I was “experienced enough.” Worried if my pricing would scare them away. Questioned if I was really ready to play bigger. But here’s what shifted everything: I stopped selling myself short. And started selling the results I could deliver. If you want to land B2B deals too — start here: → Know your buyer’s biggest problems. Corporate leaders don’t buy coaching. They buy outcomes: retention, revenue, leadership, and growth. → Package your offer like a solution, not a session. Stop leading with hours and start leading with results. Example: “6-month leadership program to improve team performance by 30%.” → Position yourself as a partner, not a vendor. B2B buyers invest in trusted collaborators, not contractors. Focus on long-term value, not short-term deliverables. → Own your pricing. B2B budgets are bigger than you think. When you undercharge, it makes you look less credible. → Follow up like a pro. Decisions take longer in B2B. Your consistency shows them how you’ll support their business. That one deal led to more. Referrals. Speaking invites. Corporate coaching programs. A stronger business with diverse revenue streams. And it all started by deciding to bet on myself. PS: Save this post so you have a playbook for your next B2B pitch.

When reps tell me enterprise is "just harder," I hear them saying they're playing the mid-market game on a bigger field. Enterprise isn't harder selling. It's a different sport with different physics. You win by aligning buying groups, writing CFO-grade business cases, and running structured pilots. I generated over $100M selling at IBM and Google. Here are the 5 disciplines I wish I knew when starting: 1. Map the buying group or your forecast is fiction Complex purchases involve 7+ stakeholders now. More roles, more veto points, more delay. Create a buying-group map with three columns: Economic (CFO/GM who owns P&L), Operational (VP/Director who owns outcomes), Technical (IT/Security/Legal/Procurement). Align these three early. If any column is empty, your forecast is fiction. In complex B2B, the problem is consensus, not charisma. 2. Write like a CFO, not a seller CFOs are capital allocators first. They green-light initiatives that upgrade unit economics and reduce risk. Translate your value into P&L levers (revenue uplift or expense reduction), cash levers (DSO/DPO, capex vs opex), and risk levers (compliance, security, continuity). The case is stronger when you quantify THEIR operating metrics, not generic ROI. Treat your proposal like capital planning, not a pitch deck. 3. Turn "hope" into a schedule A Mutual Action Plan turns hope into a schedule. List the decision milestones, owners on THEIR side and yours, artifacts required, and dates. Keep it on one page, update it live, and treat slippage as a risk you escalate. Gartner says 74% of B2B buyer teams show unhealthy conflict during decisions. If you aren't mediating that conflict, you're watching a deal stall. 4. Run a pilot-to-decision, not an endless proof One metric, one team, four weeks. Pre-agree pass/fail criteria and the exact commercial step if you hit the target. No "we'll see" or "let's discuss next steps." Before founding Seamless I learned this selling at IBM and Google. What generated over $100M wasn't better demos. It was turning every pilot into a binary decision with a scheduled close. 5. Forecast artifacts, not intent Don't forecast on "verbal yes" or "they're interested." Forecast on artifacts: redlined one-pager, booked security review, pilot agreement with pass-fail metrics, procurement templates exchanged. Intent doesn't move deals. Artifacts do. The difference between hope and deals is whether you can point to a document, calendar hold, or signed pilot plan. — Big deals don't die from bad pitching. They die from unmanaged buying groups and weak business cases. When you manage consensus instead of hoping for it. When you speak CFO, not sales rep. The value follows.

Long-Cycle Sales Are Not Won with Pressure… They’re Closed with Precision. Most sales reps treat enterprise contracts like short-term quotes. Big mistake. You’re not just selling a service. You’re managing a complex decision-making process across multiple stakeholders, risk profiles, and compliance fears. Sound familiar? - Months-long buying cycles - Procurement reviews - Budget objections etc... You’re not in transactional sales anymore. You’re in enterprise sales. Here’s what the top closers are doing differently: 1. Build Trust Like a Consultant, Not a Closer 87% of B2B buyers say trust is the #1 factor in their decision. > Not price. > Not speed. > Not ROI. That means: - Leading with insight, not pressure - Admitting when you’re not the best fit - Knowing their industry as well as your own Your credibility is the contract. Lose it, and the deal’s dead... 2. Create Urgency Without Destroying Trust Artificial deadlines? Gimmicks? Buyers see right through it and they vanish. Instead: - Show the cost of inaction (lost revenue, failed audits, poor reviews) - Tie your timeline to their goals I.E. what's important to there business. - Offer exclusive benefits for early adopters Urgency works best when it feels like alignment, not pressure. 3. Guide the Buying Journey with a Mutual Action Plan (MAP) 77% of B2B buyers say their buying process is overwhelming. If you’re not leading the process, you’re losing it. The best reps co-create a roadmap that outlines: - Who’s involved - What needs to happen - What success looks like This removes friction. It keeps momentum. And it positions you as the pro who’s orchestrating success... 4. Engage Every Stakeholder… Especially the Skeptics Most pest control reps talk to their champion and hope for the best. Elite closers multi-thread across departments: - Ops - Legal - Procurement They ask: > “Who else needs to be involved so we can get this done right?” - They find the skeptic. - They win them over early. - They never leave the champion to fight alone. 5. Close with Proof, Not Pressure In the final mile, trust alone won’t close the deal. You need: - ROI calculators - Case studies - Visual proposals - Risk mitigation data Make the business case so strong… The only rational answer is “Let’s go.” What Sales Reps Must Remember: You’re not just selling a solution. You’re selling safety, reputation, and operational continuity... And if you're still relying on pressure tactics instead of enterprise precision? You’re going to lose. But if you’re ready to start closing like the pros? - Lead with trust - Anchor urgency in reality - Back it all with proof Then you’ll not only win the deal. You’ll own the process... "Lead Different. Sell Smarter. Win with Purpose." --- ♻️ Share this post with a sales leader who needs to hear it. 👉 Click here: Follow me on LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/eA7csH2q Join our community of 39,000+ sales professionals today! P.S. Thanks for reading!

B2B buying behavior is evolving fast. In the past, sales reps played the key role in educating the buyer throughout their journey. According to a buyer trends study by 6sense, today's B2B buyers are nearly 70% through their purchase process before engaging with sellers. What's more, 85% have mostly defined their purchase requirements before reaching out to vendors. Much of the buyer journey now is self-directed and self-served. This shift is primarily driven by the availability of digital resources. What this means is that if you want to align with B2B buyer behavior and fuel greater SQLs and sales pipeline, you better have a sophisticated digital strategy and a strong-as-heck digital presence throughout their journey. Here’s how you can achieve that: 1. UNDERSTAND YOUR ICP Build an audience insights engine. Understand your ICP’s frustrations and pain points as deeply as possible. Continually interview customers, survey your audience, track what they are searching for in Google and the AI engines, listen to sales call recordings and talk to your sales team, and conduct win-loss analysis of your CRM data. 2. FIND THE GAPS Conduct a gap analysis. What is your audience currently focused on, yet you have no web pages or content addressing those questions or concerns? Identify the gaps and prioritize the most important topics. You'll likely be surprised by the number of gaps you spot. 3. CREATE IMPACTFUL CONTENT Then, create web pages, content, and experiences that truly resonate with your audience based on your deeper ICP understanding. Solve their problems. Eliminate their frustrations. Empower them to achieve more. If a content piece doesn’t, then ditch it. Ruthlessly focus on being the most useful content provider to your ICP. And make sure that the content covers the questions they are wrestling with when they are not only problem-aware, but also solution-aware, and product-aware. 3. AMPLIFY, AMPLIFY, AMPLIFY This is a step that many marketing teams fail at. It’s not enough to create content. You gotta amplify it to ensure that your valuable content is actually reaching your audience. To that end, make it easy to discover your brand. Make sure that your SEO & AEO game is on fire, and that you’re just as focused on PR, content amplification, event marketing, and social media. If you are world-class at these four steps (or striving to be), you’ll be sure to significantly increase SQLs and pipeline with today’s self-directed B2B buyers. Let’s Destroy Mediocre Marketing!

For years, the B2B startup playbook treated "brand" as a fuzzy concept and "content" as just SEO fodder. In the age of AI, this mindset is not just outdated - it’s a huge missed opportunity. Across our portfolio, the B2B companies breaking out aren't always the ones with the most product features or the most aggressive sales reps. They are the ones who realized they aren't just a software company, they are also a media company. In a world where products are getting commoditized overnight, brand is actually an important moat. Here are a few tactics that I've seen work well when building a B2B brand that matters: ✔️ Own a "conversation," not just a "keyword." Instead of just trying to rank for a specific keyword, aim to become the most trusted voice on a single, important conversation in the industry. As my co-founder Scott Hartley always points out, a team that does this brilliantly is our portfolio company Stitch. Based in South Africa, they're not just selling a payments API, they are relentlessly educating the market on the complexities of African fintech, making them the go-to resource long before a sales conversation ever happens. ✔️ Turn internal expertise into public content. Your company is a goldmine of expertise. Your engineers solve complex problems, your sales team has unique market insights, and your customer support team understands user pain points better than anyone. Build a system to mine this internal knowledge and share it generously with the world. ✔️ Treat content with the same rigor as product. Don't just "do content" - have a content roadmap, test different formats, obsess over quality and distribution, and measure the results. Understand that a great piece of content can be a more valuable, long-lasting asset than any single feature of the software (gasp!) Product and sales are still critical, don't get me wrong, but the playbook is changing for B2B. Successful founders are learning to build trust at scale by investing in their brand from day one 🔥 🔥 🔥

B2B partnerships aren’t built on a handshake and a slide deck. They’re built on trust, alignment, and the ability to solve real problems together. Whether you’re teaming up for a project, a long-term collaboration, or something in between, a successful B2B partnership takes more than shared goals. It takes shared expectations, too. Here are a few must-know tips we’ve learned from building (and maintaining) partnerships that actually work: → Start with honesty, not hype → Align on outcomes, not just deliverables → Communicate like you’re on the same team → Be proactive, not reactive → Make collaboration easy → Don’t disappear after the win The best B2B partnerships don’t feel like transactions. They feel like momentum. --- Follow Michael Cleary 🏳️🌈 for more tips like this. ♻️ Share with someone building stronger partnerships.

Did you know that most B2B buyers make a shortlist of vendors and 90% of the time end up buying from someone on that list? The reason for this is, as Rory Sutherland pointed out, B2B buyers aren’t aiming for perfection, they‘re just aiming to keep their jobs. It is much safer to go with one of the names from a shortlist rather than choose an unknown and risk failure. What do these two statements say? That if you’re a known brand with a decent reputation, there is a greater chance of being on that Day 1 list.   So does B2B marketing end with building a strong brand? A strong brand helps but it doesn’t end there.   A brand, after all, is a promise that has to be repeatedly delivered. B2B buying processes often take months and go through several levels of management at the client’s office. A poor presentation at any stage, poorly worded literature or an untrained sales executive can raise doubts at any stage even if your brand was in that shortlist.   Here are somethings that brands can do to make it to that shortlist and stay there: 1. Bring all teams onboard: All departments – especially marketing, sales, operation and management – should understand clearly what the brand’s purpose and objectives are.   2. Deliver every time: Previous experience working with a vendor or a positive reference from a colleague or friend can ensure that brand makes it to that shortlist. Nothing works as well as recommendation from a friend or colleague to be in that Day 1 shortlist. If not a friend or colleague, even a testimonial from someone in the industry is good. For this vendors need to focus on products, services and people and ensure that they deliver.   3. A strong presence for the brand: A well-made website, good social media presence and positive news once-in-a-while in the media all go towards creating a positive opinion of the brand across different levels of the client’s management.   Building a strong B2B brand is not just about being noticed—it’s about consistently delivering on your promises and staying top of mind. From the first impression to the final handshake, every touchpoint matters. By aligning your teams, maintaining impeccable service, and cultivating a robust presence, you ensure your brand not only makes the shortlist but stays there until the deal is done. After all, in the world of B2B, trust is built step by step—and it’s the brands that build it well that truly succeed.   Leaving you with a video from brand that has perfected B2B branding, Salesforce. It’s an attention-grabbing ad with a single message and very clearly Salesforce. #b2bbranding #b2bmarketing