What Are Agility and Stability? Why Are They Essential for Successful B2B Sales?

If you have spent any time studying B2B businesses, you must have come across the terms agility and stability. Agile, as many of us know, is both a philosophy and a method of working for companies, whether they are B2B or B2C. Stability in business means exactly what the term suggests. 

B2B sales businesses need to be both agile and stable to make sure they are delivering their best to their clients. Let’s find out more about agility and stability and why they are so important in B2B sales.

What does Agility mean in B2B Sales?

B2B sales teams face a completely different set of challenges when it comes to dealing with clients. When a consumer-facing business faces a problem, it has to wade through a lot of things like creating consumer personas, conducting surveys, and so on. However, dealing with another business is a different ball game altogether. 

In its strictest definition, an agile team is supposed to employ continuous iterative practices. Dev teams can take this meaning in a completely different way than sales teams would. A dev team is concerned with the product, and only that. A sales team has to take into account the product and how the market reacts to it. That makes agility in B2B sales somewhat more challenging. 

Being agile in B2B sales means transforming the entire operations to make it more conducive to rapid change. The term agility denotes fast and fluid movement, and that is what every sales team aims for. 

What makes a Sales Team Agile?

Sales teams do not become agile overnight or adopt agile practices in a day. The two keywords of the agile philosophy are continuous and iterative. To put it in simple words, it means the ability to improvise and adapt to changing situations. 

All sales teams have this one thing in common - they can adapt to change quickly. We saw many examples of it when the pandemic hit the world. With so many supply chains cut off, only those who could adapt and overcome survived. 

So when a company is incorporating agility in sales, key changes are brought about in how every part of the team works - within themselves and with each other. Coordination is the key to agility. When every team member is in sync with others, adapting to change becomes easier. 

The overall office culture also plays a key role in building agility. As a sales team member, one needs to abide by certain company standards. Now, offices with strict hierarchies can have a difficult time adopting agile principles. When there is some fluidity between the hierarchies, communication becomes more effective. As young professionals entering the sales market, you should keep these things in mind while choosing a workplace. 

The Role of Technology in Agile B2B Sales

Technology has changed how we work in every aspect of our lives. Businesses that employ advanced technologies, especially automation, have a much easier time adopting agile principles. 

At its core, the goal of all automation is to reduce the time that goes into repetitive and mechanical actions. Automation not only makes processes faster but also allows for more creativity with the mundane parts being handled by the machines. 

With a creative workforce, operations automatically become more agile. The faster a team adopts automation technologies, the quicker they can simplify sales operations. Therefore, the salesforce in successful companies is usually adept with modern tools and technology.

What does Stability mean in B2B Sales?

Stability in B2B sales means exactly what the word suggests. A team/company needs a steady base from where it can operate the business. The stable base also acts as a repository of knowledge. It is the resource hub that makes all the other operations smooth and seamless. 

Stability can convey more than one thing. Good leadership skills from seniors also play a key role in attaining stability. However, a company’s talent, the employees, is the driving factor. A progressive and steady workforce creates an environment that promotes business and facilitates growth.

The process of making sales demands industry knowledge and expertise in whatever the company or business offers. A company achieves stability when a proper industry-oriented resource hub meets a well-trained sales team. 

A team that has the required resource at its disposal can take a lot more risks and challenges, thus improving the overall performance. 

Why Agility and Stability are both Crucial in B2B Sales?

To drive a sales team to success in the B2B space, being agile and stable are indispensable. At a time when there is cutthroat competition in every sector, only the fittest would survive. As history teaches us, the ability to adapt is a crucial component of survival. While being agile gives us the ability to transform whenever the need arises, having a stable base ensures that the transition is fast and productive. One without the other can be counterproductive or, more frequently, very confusing and disoriented. 

Initiating the change

The beginning is always the hardest part of any process. Once you overcome the initial challenges, other things tend to fall in place.

Being a part of a B2B sales team is more challenging than ever, and so is assuming the leadership roles. At the same time, we have access to more human resources and information than at any time in history. The recipe for success lies in how you leverage these resources to accomplish a target. 

We hope this piece will inspire you to deeply understand how various factors work together to shape the operations of a B2B sales team. 

Check out Juno School of Business to start a career in sales.