Retail to Business (R2B) has become a major buzz word in today's corporate world.
R2B simply means acquiring business customers from a Retail location, and, when stated that quickly it sounds very easy.
Unfortunately, the truth is very few organizations seem able to provide their Retail staff with either the tools or knowledge necessary to acquire business customers.
My goal is to provide you with those tools and, that knowledge. I will continue to search for advice and proven best-practices that allow you to develop both.
In some ways you need to forget what you have been taught about working in a Retail environment and pretend you are a "rookie" B2B rep. So, this page will cover the basics of selling to business customers and how to get them to visit your location.
For more advanced content please visit the other pages on this site, which are designed for those sales people and leaders already in an "outside sales" position.
Remember, other than generating more commission and helping your location achieve its goals, developing a talent for selling to business customers makes you more marketable and often results in advancement to an outside sales position.
To save time, use the search tool below to find what you need.
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APPROVED ARTICLES
Selling In A Recession - 5 Steps For Increasing Sales
For some time now everyone has been saying that there could be a recession looming. After the US subprime debacle, the media were sure. Plenty of experts have backed them up with their opinions about when, where and how bad this recession will be. - MORE
Learn How to Collect Your Money
Getting paid. Isn't that the ultimate goal from each and every sale? It had better be, or you are in the wrong business! Why are you in the selling profession? It certainly isn't the easiest job. It certainly is not a career for everybody, and everyone is not qualified or capable to be in sales. - MORE
Connect to Your Customers Through Superb Sales Letters
In the age of e-newsletters and e-mail, you may not consider a sales letter, sent through the regular old postal service, as a viable means of contacting your target market. But the traditional sales letter has not gone completely by the wayside. Need proof? Just look at your own mail. Chances are you get some form of sales correspondence (read: “junk mail”) in your box every day. - MORE
Cold Calling Strategies For Beginners
Cold calling is not an enjoyable task. Most people dislike having to call up new prospects because you never know how the person on the other end will react. Rejection is a hard thing to take. There are ways to make your cold calling tasks easier and a little more effective. - MORE
Avoiding Procrastination
Are you like me - need to or even want to do something but can’t get started? Would you like a foolproof method for getting things done? Try this, it works for me! - MORE
Does A Lead Generation Cold Call Have To Be So Cold?
When you are calling a prospective sales lead, there is a fence between you and the other person. That fence is there to keep out people who are trying to waste their time. People who want something. People like you (and me). Our job is to find the gate in that fence and coax the prospect to open it for us. - MORE
15 Types of Phone Screeners
Understanding the different types of phone screeners, and why they act like they do, is an essential element to gaining access to the decision maker - MORE
10 Telemarketing Basics You Should Know Now
The way to drive business towards growth and profitability is marketing. Marketing needs careful planning and smart deployment of company resources. Marketing can take on several forms like direct marketing, advertising, and telemarketing. - MORE
What You Can Learn From Top Down Sales Strategists
The first question asked by those who are new to selling is, "I know the company I want to prospect. Who should I contact first in that company?"
Seasoned sales pros respond to the rookies by saying, the most desirable contact is always, always, always the top decision maker. - MORE
How to Develop an Effective Elevator Pitch
Do you truly believe that your company’s products and services will help your prospects? Have you ever thought, “I KNOW I could find ways to help (company name) if I could just get (prospect name) to talk to me for 20 minutes!” - MORE
14 Steps to Successful Cold-Calling
The vast majority of salespeople do not enjoy cold-calling. Yet, at the same time, it is an activity that most need to do on a regular basis. The biggest reason sales professionals are not more successful in this necessary endeavor is the defense that they have other things to do. However, nothing will overcome this excuse faster than being held accountable for making a set number of cold calls each day, each week, or each month. - MORE
Customer Retention Can Be Easy!
Long before the winter's holiday sales, retailers across the country were trying to lure shoppers with unique, new strategies. This is also your cue to take advantage of the expensive years of research that's already been done by top retailers, and apply innovative "packaging" to your business to drive more results your way. - MORE
Cold Calling (on the phone)
Out of all the wondrous facets of selling, cold calling has to rate as the single most hated of all. I have often been curious as to reason out why this is the case. I carved out my career in this world of selling on the back of the fact that I truly loved to cold call. Where others around me would spend their days schmoozing their existing clients in the vain hope of persuading one or two to increase their order, I would be consistently bringing in three, four or even five brand new orders in the same space of time. - MORE
How To Handle Rejection
This sales prospecting technique isn't specifically about how to prospect. It's a technique for dealing with the ill effects of prospecting, how to handle rejection. Being able to overcome the ill effects of rejection is vital to success in sales.- MORE
Attributes of Top Telemarketers
There are specific attributes the top telemarketing sales appointment setter's posses. Without these traits, they fall into the "also ran" pack of telephone callers who will help your business to the extent a blind squirrel finds an acorn. - MORE
Overcoming Call Reluctance
Everyone in marketing faces it at one time or another - reluctance to pick up the phone and make calls. Logically, it makes no sense to feel that way. We believe in our product or service. We have a script that’s either been given to us or one that we’ve carefully written out. We have a list of prospects that are at least somewhat targeted. We know that when someone says “No”, it’s not directed at us. And still… the phone weighs a ton. - MORE
Telemarketing scripts and how they work
A good script can be a brilliant tool for both inside and outside sales. Sometimes it will work because of the specific buzz words being used, on other occasions the structure it provides is the key - MORE
Ten Top Tips for Dealing With Gatekeepers
There are many conflicting opinions out there on the subject of how best to deal with gatekeepers - MORE
Do You Have The Right Confidence To Make The Sale?
First and foremost, the very first thing you need develop in sales and negations is your confidence.
But be aware of the fools sense of confidence which plagues most salesmen, and that is the confidence which is based totally on bravado.
Let me explain! - MORE
