Who's Buying? Knowing the Decision Makers For Your B2B Startup

Posted by Ryan Howard on Jul 8, 2022 1:49:33 PM

Knowing the Decision Makers For Your B2B Startup

You can't build your business or do effective marketing unless you know who you're selling to.  These initial decisions will guide your sales and marketing team to be its most successful and scale your company faster. Do you know who's going to be buying your goods or services?

Do you know the decision-makers for your B2B startup?

 

Four Types of B2B Buyers

Depending on your type of business, you may be selling to four different types of B2B buyers:

  • Producers
  • Resellers
  • Government
  • Institutions

Producers will include any company that purchases your services or goods in order to turn them around and sell them as something else. These would include manufacturing companies, construction companies, or even companies that rely on your technology (SaaS) in order to sell their own products or services.

Resellers will buy your products and sell them as their own.  Resellers could be retailers or even other technology companies that partner with your company to sell your products.

Government contracts are another way to sell in a B2B market. Any products or services that can be used by a local, state, or federal government would be another type of buyer for your business. 

Institutions such as non-profits and educational facilities are another way to sell your goods and services. If they're in need of any of your products or services that make their jobs easier, it's wise to include them on the list.

Who Are the Decision Makers?

Once it's been decided who you'll sell to, then you can determine who the decision-makers are.  The best way to sell and market to them is to set up buyer personas. These are fictional characters that represent the actual people in the organizations you're targeting, their responsibilities, challenges, and goals. Name your characters and provide their roles within the organizations, their education levels, career history and trajectory, job goals, communication preferences, social behaviors, pain points, obstacles to contact, and preferences. In addition, add in how your goods or services help to meet their goals or resolve their challenges. This information will help determine a marketing strategy.

Plan, Measure, Optimize

At this point, you can start to devise a marketing strategy to reach your decision-makers. Understand that the strategy must be continually measured for results and optimized for effectiveness. It's advisable to work with your sales team to field any questions or concerns about your goods or services. The answers to these questions can be used to build content for your marketing campaigns or to develop the language used on your website, social media, and more.

To grow your business, you must know who you're selling and marketing to. This exercise is a solid start in developing a plan to meet your decision-makers where they are to entice their interest.

Once you've gained a new client, consider running a credit check on their business before issuing credit so you can ensure they'll pay on time too! Our sister company, VeriFirst, can help! Business Credit Checks with VeriFirst

Topics: Best Practices, Business relationships, Entrepreneurs