Initiatives such as last Friday’s Small Business Day are encouraging us all to support our local businesses when we purchase – but what about B2B?

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B2B means ‘business to business’. The term encompasses all businesses that create products and services geared towards other businesses. If you own a small business, it is very likely you will be working with B2B companies.

Traditionally, B2B sales happened with a handshake over lunch. We know that’s all changing with millennials now the largest part of the workforce. But in-person networks are still key for B2B interactions, especially in a district such as Central Otago.

Here in Central Otago, we have a variety of groups that facilitate businesses reaching out to other local businesses, including the Alexandra Clyde and Districts Business Group, Cromwell Business Network, Roxburgh Teviot Valley Business Group, Maniototo Business Group, CO Wine Growers Association and the Otago Chamber of Commerce.

The many business groups throughout the region provide key opportunities for business owners to focus on traditional in-person social networking, not just social media networking. In fact, B2B success may be more about successfully combining social networking, social media networking and e-commerce.

Owner of a successful international travel business, creating bespoke guided tours to far-flung exotic places like India and Africa, Natasha Sinclair and her Crafted Journeys business is an example of what can be achieved by collaborating with other local businesses and focusing locally.

The result – unique tours that showcase Central Otago businesses, sights and experiences, and keep both visitors and locals spending local.

There are many more examples of our small businesses banding together to help each other and drive success.

E-commerce has come a long way from its early days as just a separate part of the business you set up and hope to see some returns on. Now, e-commerce is pivotal for just about every organisation, including those who operate B2B.

Globally, there are US$17 trillion B2B payments made every year.

Yes, trillion. And half of those payments are still being made manually. Clearly, there is a massive shift that still needs to happen in the B2B space. If your customer is another business, it’s still about customer experience - making life easier for both you and your customer whether they be individuals or a business.

It’s just that with B2B, you’re operating on a larger scale.

Implementing new tech and digital tools is one of the ways businesses are able to scale their engagement. But the amount of engagement and places to engage online can also be overwhelming.

Vicki McLean has been showing businesses how to attract quality customers for over 30 years. She has trained and consulted to some of the biggest global brands in successful B2B sales and marketing, including Virgin Radio International.

Now back at home in Central, she says digital media is key, when combined with traditional forms of networking.

“More people are now going online to find answers to problems; you can pretty much find anything at the click of a button.

The emerging challenges, Vicki says, is that businesses think they have to be everywhere, and that consumers and business owners are buying from other businesses they don’t know or trust.

She says digital success doesn’t mean continually keeping up with the Joneses when it comes to social platforms and hot new digital trends; she advocates for doing less, better.

“All the terminology, trying to understand SEO, all those places to go to find information, it can all be very confusing.

“First be clear about the outcome you want to achieve, pick a digital platform that fits with your brand, gives you the reach to the right target market, makes it easy for your customers to interact with you, and get that working well for you first,” she advises.

“You’ve got to inspire people to work with you, come to you, buy from you.

“Your point of difference is thinking about what you can deliver beyond the businesses that just deliver to your door.

“It’s easy to think, ‘We’re so behind. We’ve got to have a Facebook page, we’ve got to have Instagram.’

“You don’t have to have all the platforms - you just need to be in the right place for your business and your customers, and it could be close to home.”

“Remember that most of the platforms take your money overseas; start by looking locally and get that working for you.”

“If we all work together, we all make each other successful, and we strengthen our local communities.”

“And remember that it really is best to have a mix of personal networking with good digital media and easy to use e-commerce.”

Image Unsplash

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