Skip to main content

India B2B sales-Part 1-The Hunters

By C Chaitanya
Starting a new series of blog posts on sales gyan with inputs from our sales head, Rajiv Bharatan.
Flickr

The Hunters

In sales parlance, hunting is simply going after new logos. The opportunity may arise due to
  • An in-bound lead
  • It could be a referral (referrals can be internal or external)
  • It can be a cold-call (which seems to be completely out of fashion now).
  • It can be a cold email
  • It could be through a direct message on social media
One reacts to such a lead, goes through the sales process, and either closes the deal, loses it or the lead goes cold, due to various reasons. Smart Hunters catch their prey(customer) no matter what. And just like in a real hunt, preparation is the key. 

Some good hunting spots:
  • Linkedin groups
  • Facebook groups(Bangalore startups, Headstart Network, Hyderabad startups etc)
  • Conferences (Unpluggd, Techcircle, Techsparks etc)
Hunting tools:
  • Twitter. A good hunter has patience. He builds a network and observes patterns in social media. He engages with customers and when the time is right, pounces on them. Well,not literally, but you get the drift :)
  • Linkedin. In B2B sales, this is an indispensable tool. You have to create the right network.
  • Blogs. Read everything, everyday and keep upto date on the vertical/customer profile you are targeting. Read about funding stories to understand who has the money to spend. Read about customer launches to understand who might have a need for your product.
  • Product. The right product is a killer tool. If the product is weak, there is only so much a hunter can do. 
  • Email and Call script. Done right, this can be very powerful and the cheapest way to get a customer.
Have the right hunting tools and go to the right hunting spots. You are sure to get your customer. And make sure you have the right kind of friends. Hunting is a very niche sport. The rewards are great, but if you dont manage to bag enough targets, you will starve to death(lose your job) and other hunters will take your place. After all, its a dog eat dog world.

If you some cool hunting methods you want to share please share in the comments below.

Happy hunting.

Popular posts from this blog

Google's approach to business communication

By C Chaitanya
 Google has been making silent moves in the business communication space. Google has mostly lost the instant messaging wars. But it does not want to lose the business communication war. WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook have been making their own moves to enable businesses to reach their customers through their channels. Its all about who has control over the communication channels. Especially communication which leads to business. That's where the money is. Currently, Google is the king of search and most online transactions start with a Google search. FB, Amazon, Apple and others want to change that. They want the search to start on their properties. And they have started making the moves. WhatsApp business allows small businesses to conduct their transactions on WhatsApp. FB and Instagram have long supported small businesses to manage their business on their channels. Apple has also made some nice moves with Apple business chat. They have integrated a whole shopping expe...
Read more

Telugu ASR speech data collection

By C Chaitanya
Image Source: IIIT-H Developing an indigenous ASR for Indian languages has been a goal for us since a long time. In that regard we have been experimenting a lot, trying out various neural network architectures.  While doing these experiments we found that there was no good dataset for Indian languages. While discussing with IIIT professors we got to know that the government of India was also exploring options to generate a good dataset. We immediately offered our help and our platform for this endeavor. So, as a starting step we have come up with a few campaigns to encourage users to donate speech data. We wanted to make it fun, so our first few campaigns are along the lines of JAMs(Just a Minute speech topics) etc. A topic will be provided and you need to speak for a minute on that topic. We have started this campaign for college students to start with. Of course anyone can participate and contribute their data. The more the merrier :) We will adding a lot more innovative ways ut...
Read more

Ozonetel. Take 2, The Text Edition

By C Chaitanya
Ever since we introduced cloud telephony to India in 2009, Ozonetel has always been known as the go to startup for cloud telephony requirements like cloud call centers and virtual numbers. Voice has been our mainstay for a long time and it will continue to be so in the future too. But starting this month, we at Ozonetel have decided to have an increased focus on text based communication channels in addition to voice channels. It's not that we did not support these channels earlier. We already supported, chat and some email functionality. But it has been in bits and pieces only. But starting this month text channels, including email, chat and social media will become First Class Citizens in our stack. They will get the same love that our voice channels get. Unsplash           To achieve this we have planned several upgrades to our platform which will unfold over the coming weeks. Here is a sneak peak of what we are planning. Built in Contact Manager: This has bee...
Read more