Instead of going directly to the customer (B2C) to network, there is another world of opportunity to scale your product and tap into sales channels that have already been developed for you — business to business (B2B) relationships. Before you spend thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars building a brand in order to reach the B2C crowd, follow these simple steps to understand how to network B2B without going directly to the customer.
Target Influencers
Most people will agree time is a precious commodity, so when networking, target an influencer. Influencers are key people in your target industry who have established networks of your target clients. These could be other vendors who sell complementary products and services, or they could be association leaders that educate your industry.
When networking with an influencer, one equals many. Your efforts on selling one group, individual or entity will give you access to potentially hundreds of thousands if not millions of potential customers. The goal is to get a warm introduction to their network through them. You do not have to reinvent the wheel (or in this case, the network). If an influencer endorses you to their large network, you can leverage this to get to market quicker and improve efficiency.
For example, if you have created a piece of technology that can benefit pediatricians, a target influencer would be the American Academy of Pediatrics. You would want to build a relationship with the association and try to get the association to endorse your technology to their members.
Research
In order to get the attention of an influencer, you have to be sincerely interested in what they do or what service they provide. I find that when I reach out to a massive business-to-business entity, it's important to always be inquisitive. Everyone loves talking about themselves, after all.
It’s not enough to ask a lot of questions, though — you have to come to the table knowing a lot about your influencer’s industry and business. To do this, you have to do a lot of research and become an expert on your influencer. This helps you ask better questions (because you know what’s important to them). By positioning yourself as someone who understands where they are coming from, your target clients will see you less as a vendor and more as an ally.
Also, when you demonstrate that you understand the day-to-day hurdles and the pressures on their industry, you open up conversations about issues that you can solve. It’s important to remember that being a problem-solver for your ally requires a degree of specialization. While your technology may have value to a number of industries, it’s important that you approach your influencer’s problem as if your technology was created specifically for them.
A great side benefit of being inquisitive and asking well-informed questions is that, after sharing about their organization, they will ask you the same questions out of courtesy. That's your window to explain how your product or service can enhance what they do.
Make Your Influencers Look Like Superstars
In order to leverage your relationship with your influencer, you have to present your product in a way so the influencer benefits greatly by endorsing you — meaning they end up looking like a superstar because they found you and your product (even though you found them).
In the example above, the American Academy of Pediatrics would need to see how endorsing you and your product makes them more valuable to their members. For instance, you can offer the members a discount if they purchase through their relationship with the association.
