Sustainable growth is a continuous challenge in today’s hyper-competitive B2B landscape.
It becomes even tougher when a company – and unfortunately this happens a lot lately – is dealing with a drop in new businesses. This situation typically results not only in a decline in revenue compared to short- and medium-term objectives, but also in a progressive decline in margins, particularly due to underutilization of production capacity and capital assets.
Finding new customer bases via expansion to new markets and expansion to new verticals is one of the ways to regain or boost growth.
However, it is often interpreted as a risky step into unknown waters, eating up investment and teammates – which, given the current situation, maybe should rather be focused on safeguarding core business.
But there is a way to make diversification accessible under controlled conditions. Your company’s core expertise might be a powerful lever for accelerating customer acquisition in new markets – if you know how to use it.
Follow this proven series of steps to take toward smart B2B expansion – it all comes down to the right go-to-market strategy paired with the right people to deliver it.
Kick off by bringing together all your key business stakeholders.
It is vital in this first step to involve the teammates who are most familiar with every aspect of your core business, including:
This initial brainstorming session focuses on mapping out your company's expertise in all relevant areas, which helps identify your potential for individual differentiation: specific characteristics and results that your own teams agree represent unique benefits.
Next, run a second brainstorming session to investigate combinations of these potential individual differentiators, which makes your offering more unique and compelling. For example, you are a company offering machining subcontracting services. During the first series of workshops, you identified two key differentiators: the range of tolerances you can guarantee and the very special materials you are processing. The combination of a special raw material and an exceptional level of tolerance is probably a better differentiator than these features alone.
Document the different combinations of differentiators. They are the foundation of your smart expansion strategy and the source of your competitive edge in new markets.
This kind of brainstorming requires thorough preparation, organization and execution, including active leadership involvement, a skilled moderator and time blocked out for focused teamwork.
Once you’ve identified what makes your product or service stand out in your core market, the next step is to identify new verticals and/or regional markets that could benefit from those differentiators.
This phase is also conducted in another brainstorming session, but with configuration and orientation geared more toward products and services. An open and creative approach broadens the range of possibilities, but it is also wise to remain pragmatic so you can focus on what really matters, like defining clear “no-go” – for example market segments with insurmountable regulatory barriers.
Once you have compiled the full list of segments (combination of products/services and markets) that could be addressed, evaluate and rank them carefully based on two questions:
The more acute the pain, the more receptive prospects will be to your solution.
With your target segments and pain points identified, it’s time to craft compelling unique value propositions (UVP). For each new market or vertical, develop a clear, concise statement that articulates:
Tailor your value proposition – sometimes called unique sales proposition or USP – to the language and priorities of each market segment and/or vertical. Use concrete outcomes to make it tangible and credible.
B2B decisionmakers look for partners who understand their business and can deliver measurable results.
Armed with targeted segments and unique value propositions, the next step is to identify and qualify your potential prospects in these new markets and verticals. It’s time to define your ideal customer profile (ICP) and figure out your product-market fit.
Start with defining your “must-haves”: the essential criteria defining, independently of the considered segments, the type of organizations likely to be interested in working with your company, such as geographical footprint, minimum size or vertical integration level.
On the basis of the selected segments and the must-have criteria, create a list of target potential customers. To do this, you can of course use professional databases. But it's more likely that you'll brainstorm with ChatGPT or the like, to help learn more specifics about your target company client, including vision and mission, product lines and characteristics, market segments, strategic orientations, marketing highlights, latest important news, leadership changes and supplier collaboration processes. Plus, it’s always good to interview prospects early and often to see what they think, while researching LinkedIn trends.
Segment your prospect list by priority, focusing first on those with the highest potential for quick wins. This targeted approach maximizes your team’s efficiency and increases your chances of early success.
A good strategy is only as good as its execution. With the "who," "what," "why" and "where" of your smart expansion already defined, it's time to chart and complete a go-to-market plan (GTM) for each segment with the "how,” and to prepare the tools your team needs to navigate the new market segment or vertical:
It is also recommended at that stage to start creating battle cards and cold calling scripts, involving concise, strategic documentation that will provide the sales team with the information they need to approach potential customers, create leads and increase the likelihood of closing deals. The more prepared your team will be, the more confident and effective it will be in the field.
Experience shows that your BDR team is the most critical component of any business development initiative and, paradoxically, the one that business leaders most often underestimate. The quality and commitment of the team you will assign to run the initiative will make the difference between a successful execution and a disappointing standstill. It’s perhaps even more important when you are launching your product or service abroad.
You need a two-level lead development team: the BDRs that will approach your potential new customers, and the interdisciplinary team that will handle all actions associated with the processing of upcoming qualified business opportunities. You may need to change some of your sales agents and BDRs out if they’ve not sold in this location or to this market segment before.
This interdisciplinary team has to demonstrate openness and flexibility to respond effectively to the distinctive expectations of different types of customers, while complying as far as possible with your business processes.
You need real business developers, true hunters that are experienced and enthusiastic at cold calling, building new relationships and selling value. If your sales organization is based on account management and you have no real business development structure in place, don't assume that you can assign Account Managers, even the best ones, to this initiative. Over 90% of them will by nature make poor business developers and you even run the risk of demotivating them.
If you lack in-house sales staff, consider partnering with external business development specialists, especially when reaching out to a new country or vertical. By working with teams that are already on the ground, you can cut your launch time down from months to a matter of weeks.
There's only one aspect of the Go-to-Market strategy left to tackle: the “when.”
The launch date now mostly depends on the time needed to finalize the preparation of all your go-to-market strategy – presentations, scripts, sales battle cards – and to pick and train your business development team.
In addition to the launch date and activities, it is also wise to define the stages of the execution of the go-to-market strategy, as your team will probably not approach all potential customers at the same time. Take advantage of this opportunity to adopt an agile methodology: plan your execution in short, targeted sprints, with regular reviews and adjustments. After each sprint, evaluate what worked, what didn't work, and what needs to be improved for the next sprint. This iterative approach allows you to respond quickly to market feedback, build on early wins and course-correct before small issues – especially around messaging in a new country – turn into major obstacles.
After successfully completing all these steps, you’re all set to launch and execute step by step the execution of your go-to-market strategy, track progress, convert prospects to opportunities and contracts, and continuously refine your approach based on results. Use dashboards and regular team check-ins to track progress and share learnings. If working with a third-party sales agency, they should be upfront with how they organize these checkins and share metrics and outcomes.
Continuous improvement is essential. Celebrate the wins, learn from setbacks, and refine your approach based on real-world results.
Smart expansion isn’t about chasing every opportunity. It’s about leveraging what you do best to win new customers, faster and with less risk. By systematically mapping your expertise, targeting the right segments, and executing with agility, you can unlock new growth opportunities.
But none of this happens without strong sales leadership and a commitment to bringing the right teammates in at each stage. One of the most important points to consider is ensuring that you have adequate business development representatives and not assuming that your account managers can perform this role. In most cases, it is not an effective solution by far.
Ready to accelerate your expansion? Start by mapping out your core expertise, and let your strengths lead the way.
Interested in learning more or needing support with your next business development initiative? Contact me and / or contact Sales Force Europe to learn how we can help you win new customers and enter new markets, smarter and faster.
