What is B2B? All Your Questions Answered

Consumers aren’t the only ones that shop with businesses throughout different industries. The businesses you shop with must supply their shelves and websites from somewhere. For that, they do the same thing anyone else would do: they turn to other businesses.

The answer to the question, “what is B2B,” is as simple as that. It’s a form of company which is focused on selling to other businesses, instead of regular consumers. Business-facing companies help to keep the modern economy running, and function completely different from most other companies.

Since their customers are businesses instead of consumers, their marketing must be designed differently. They also operate differently and approach potential clients in ways that may seem strange to most consumers. With B2B companies, everything boils down to business – and that involves more than just making sales.

Keep reading below to learn all about B2B companies, and how they may affect you.

Businesses Shop With other Businesses

When a business runs low on its stock or wants to expand its services, it needs to go somewhere for help. Creating a whole new department to fulfill those new needs is too costly and tiresome to ever be successful. It’s also too risky to jump into a new field without knowing what the business is getting into.

Instead of doing it all itself, a business looking to restock or to expand will reach out to other businesses. The companies it reaches out to are known as B2B companies and can offer a variety of services. They may sell large volumes of a particular item for the business to resell to consumers. They may also work more intimately with the company to help it improve its operations.

No matter how B2B companies work with consumer-facing companies like Walmart or Apple, they are responsible for building the markets you know. Without B2B companies, your favorite retailer wouldn’t have its stock. You also likely wouldn’t have ever heard of your favorite website without B2B companies.

 Companies That Connect Companies

Most B2B companies don’t even sell consumer-facing companies anything tangible. Instead, they sell services to help give consumer-facing companies an edge in their markets. These can include marketing services, branding, or even consulting services on how to improve.

For example, many companies will hire a B2B company for lead gen services. Most companies aren’t intimately familiar with their markets when they just start off. They may not know who to go to for the best services, or what they even need in order to be competitive.

Lead gen services help these smaller companies find businesses that can help them. They make those businesses easier to find, which helps smaller companies connect with their market easier while generating business for the other company. It’s one of many ways B2B companies can fundamentally shape markets and help companies improve themselves.

What Is B2B? It Lets Companies Serve You

Without B2B companies, there would be no way for markets to improve as a whole. Businesses would be left to their own devices to innovate and improve, while also trying to serve their customer base. Companies could only get as good as the resources available to them.

Yet, with B2B companies, businesses can essentially trade with each other. And whenever a trade is introduced, all parties emerge better off in the end. Keep reading below to learn how B2B companies help shape markets and the economy as a whole!

Without B2B, There Is No Supply

Whenever you stop by a gas station or head into a Walmart, you see shelves lined with items. That’s only because those stores work with B2B companies to keep themselves stocked with items. Without B2B companies, they would never be able to maintain a steady supply of anything.

When supply drops due to a lack of availability, demand drops too. That means the economy as a whole slows, due to a decrease in both the supply and demand. It also means businesses will struggle to survive, and would frequently shutter.

The B2B Renaissance Is Here

The internet and new technology did more than deliver your memes and videos. It also enabled companies to work together on unprecedented scales. It heralded an age of globalization, with it an increase in the levels of complexity in markets.

Managing a supply chain takes years of study now when five decades earlier all you needed to get your stock was the name of a supplier. Luckily, B2B companies are equipped to navigate a new, globalized world. They look at markets as a whole, rather than the demographics and companies within them.

That means they can strategize the best options to deliver the best products and services to businesses. They also have the opportunity to shape those markets by working with the businesses in them.

B2B Companies Must Be Professional

Consumer-facing companies have the opportunity to craft their marketing materials around appeals to emotion. They can be edgy to attract attention and convince people to purchase their products and services by eliciting emotion convincing them the product will improve their lives. Yet, B2B companies’ customers aren’t people; they’re businesses.

That means their marketing strategies can’t appeal to emotion since businesses don’t feel anything. Instead, B2B companies need to craft their marketing strategies around the logic of revenue estimates and profit margins. They need to convince businesses that hiring them will net them more money.

At the interpersonal level, B2B company representatives must be professional. They often meet with company executives who are professional and most of all, stoic. It’s rare for B2B representatives to leave a pitch meeting certain of whether they made a sale or not.

Yet, when they do make a sale, it’s worth a lot. Businesses will spend if they’re convinced it will make them money down the line. All B2B companies need to do is convince them that it’s worth the wait. 

Without B2B, There Are No Businesses

Globalization has enabled B2B companies to flourish. The answer to the question, “what is B2B,” has gotten simpler to answer. They’re the reason you’re able to shop online or run down to a store and find what you’re looking for.

Without them, businesses would never be able to survive. Demand would be too high to manage, and their supplies would dwindle in seconds. Markets would shrivel; so B2B companies are ultimately responsible for keeping the economy afloat.

That doesn’t mean they don’t have it hard though. Just as with any market, they need to compete in a dog-eat-dog landscape. And in a landscape like that, information is power.

Keep reading here to stay informed about the latest news in your industry, and to know how to take care of yourself. You may be an entrepreneur, but you’re more than your business. Even if it’s as important to markets as a B2B company.

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