Developing a successful IoT sales strategy takes the right amount of knowledge and effort for ideal execution.
With IoT, information is abundant, which makes it easier for you to remain informed. The experts at BH IoT Group understand an effective IoT sales strategy needs to target aspects of the experience for customers while staying relevant with all the information available.
With options and solutions expanding as new technologies, suppliers, and products emerge, it can be challenging for customers to know which purchase is right for them. That’s where a dynamic, tailored sales strategy comes to play to ensure you’re talking to the right people at the right time with the right messaging.
Discover more about crafting the ideal IoT sales strategy below.
The BH IoT Sales Strategy: Brief Overview
Executing developed IoT services is critical to your client’s services. You need to understand how to properly design and build the IoT sales strategy component while integrating it seamlessly into the client’s team across every level of the organization. You are there to help them achieve their stated business objectives at all stages of the plan.
BH IoT Group designs, develops, builds, and executes IoT strategies for companies that focus on commercializing and monetizing their IoT products and services. Our successfully deployed methods help groups launch new offerings from an incubator stage to full successful deployments, revamp existing programs, and expand capabilities within the IoT space, allowing them to generate new sources of revenue.
We are adept at any stage of the IoT business process, but the best place to start is at the beginning. Understanding how IoT products and technologies integrate into your business and how you want to position your company within the IoT ecosystem is crucial for the success of any IoT initiative.
In addition, our experts are involved in building an IoT-focused “Marketplace” for sensors, products, devices, and applications that end-user customers can review and purchase directly. With IoT solutions becoming easier to integrate and deploy, capable customers may want to browse an IoT Marketplace to buy what they need to solve their problems.
The IoT Marketplace will provide the education required for customers to review their options, see demos of solutions, purchase the needed components, and have the items drop shipped. This IoT Marketplace sales strategy is an excellent option for those who sell simple integrated solutions.
Design your IoT sales strategy to position and close deals with the following must-haves.
IoT Sales Strategy Must-Haves
Understanding The End-Goal
Since your customer can’t see or touch the service you’re providing, you need to stop and think about all the angles from their perspective. Ask yourself, what is my client buying? An outcome, a solution to their problem.
Solutions are helpful, but you need to dig a little deeper than that. Informing your client about the benefits of your solution certainly helps, but that will not address all their problems. Putting yourself in your client’s shoes means providing more than just one solution. Your sales and marketing efforts should focus on discovering all fundamental needs to develop innovative proposals to address each challenge. Building a business development plan for your company focusing on your IoT sales strategy outlines the components required to position your company and overall offering to the targeted markets. This will always include your go-to-market approach overview that outlines what you sell to who, how it will work, delivery mechanisms, and your overall financial model. Plus, the integrated program provides a concrete plan for your customer and future customers. Marketing the company is extremely important because your sales message needs to be clear, concise, and answer the customer’s challenges around their IoT needs. Work on Your Sales Skill Set Every company involved in IoT business solutions is different in its approach to selling, supporting, and creating the needed business model for success. Even when you don’t win an opportunity, there are still hidden value lessons that you can learn. As a result, it takes time to develop the right mindset and skillset to design, build, and execute a great IoT sales strategy. Selling IoT as a service requires a particular set of selling skills. IoT solutions value multiple internal teams within a company, but each team may have a different problem they need to solve. Another skill to work on is researching and fully understanding your client’s buyer persona. When you grasp the target audience, you can define their problem areas to understand their needs and priorities. Additionally, understanding the reality of the IoT ecosystem allows you to create initiatives and IoT services that help clients rapidly execute and accelerate their IoT companies. Align Your IoT Sales Strategy with Other Business Units When creating your IoT sales strategy, you want to focus on business plans that work across each business unit within the company. Business plans that build and rapidly expand an IoT business unit are more likely to generate new profitable revenue for the company. Ensure that you clearly define the needed strategies to ensure each business unit understands its role in meeting and exceeding the designed strategy. Prove Your Value (yes, even after the sale!) The sales process doesn’t stop when the customer agrees to the IoT contract. You always want to remain transparent to the customer and set expectations up front – you must be proactive and keep them informed throughout their sales lifecycle to let them know they’re in good hands. When you update the software with new features, inform them, and offer training as needed, whether it’s monthly reports, regular communications, or incident resolutions. Providing an effective sales strategy involves either direct or indirect approaches: • Direct IoT Sales Strategy – As an IoT solution provider, your sales strategy needs to be focused on offering complete integration to the customer while solving their problem. You must be able to sell both customer support and technical support. Despite its challenges, this provides the most control and highest profits. • Indirect IoT Sales Strategy – Creating an indirect channel partner program enables your products to sell through resellers, partners, distributors, master agents, and system integrators. The creation of the complete program needs to start with building a Channel Partner Playbook that outlines all details about the company, program, services, support, pricing, marketing, BD, and sales. While compensation is critical, the channel partner’s ability to sell your IoT products, solutions, or services to targeted clients within specific vertical markets where they are experts is paramount. Cultivate Customer Relationships Building meaningful relationships are helpful in every industry. That’s a given. When it comes to sales, relationships help a successful IoT go-to-market strategy launch off the ground. Maintaining suitable support systems helps set the tone and define the success of your overall strategy. Regarding an IoT sales strategy, your client will engage with you many times over the contracted subscription period. How you engage with them determines the customer relationship and whether you can retain them after the initial subscription. Strategy of Things IO defines user experience in two ways: • How they interact with your solution • How they interact with your solution support teams You want a unified experience between the product, your service, and the engagement process. IoT continues to drive the wireless market across all technologies. IoT is complex and requires being part of the delivery ecosystem for enterprise clients. Your IoT sales strategy must include a plan that involves building a partnership industry integration where the overall end-to-end solution is positioned and sold through a dedicated sales team approach.