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Seven Greatest Ideas for Helping a
Business Customer to Buy Wisely

Introduction

This section and the next are about business-to-business selling. It has been interest-

ing how the innovators on the Internet have built valuable business propositions in

the first place by looking at its possibilities in terms of business-to-con-

sumer. The advantage of such an approach is, of course, that the numeri- A favourite

cal size of the potential market is so huge, that any business that secures a maxim of mine

fraction of it and sells at a profit is going to look as though future potential states, 'a small

profits are huge. (A favourite maxim of mine states, 'a small percentage of percentage of

a large number is a large number.' This is very helpful when you are trying a large

to sell a business idea or a method of improving productivity.) But, as a number is a

gross generalisation, margins in business-to-business trading tend to be large number.'

better than in its consumer equivalent. Also, although the competitiverisk This is very

can be high, business-to-business trading tends to give you bigger jumps helpful when

in growth. If you pull off the big deal to BT or sell a small services contract you are trying

to the BBC, you may be on the way to rapid expansion. Indeed, looking at to sell a busi-

the new Internet applications providers now gives a different picture where ness idea or a

business-to-business has a higher profile. The set-up costs are probably method of

higher and the time to prepare to trade longer. This means that the capital improving

required at the start is also bigger; but the credibility of signing on actual productivity.

business customers gives a more solid look to the Internet wannabees.

Having IBM as a signed-up user is worth an awful lot of prospect databases. So,

what is the key to building the business-to-business of your dreams whether Internet-

based or not? Well, start from knowing your customers' business as well as they

know it themselves, and see everything including your sales campaign from the