Key Roles For Building A Successful B2B Wholesale Operation

Over the years, we’ve worked with many organizations and brands as they work out their B2B wholesale strategies. In that time we’ve learned quite a lot about how best to structure a team in order to manage and grow a successful B2B wholesale operation. 

Let’s take a look at what roles and responsibilities you need to build in order to succeed.

Sales Managers

In general, B2B Sales Managers oversee the successful execution of a plethora of sales initiatives, as well as managing sales representatives. Overall, their daily roles and responsibilities include: 

• Connecting with dealers and distributors.
• Analyzing sales tactics and strategies while offering new tips and technique ideas through sales training. 
• Determining the focus for the sales team through monitoring customer feedback and preferences. 
• Project sales and determine the profitability of products and services.

Sales managers also work closely with other departments in the company. Staying connected to marketing departments, support teams, and sales reps ensures that customers have access to the product information and education they need to make informed decisions about their products and services.

Customer Support

Customer support is critical to the success of any B2B eCommerce team. The reality is that customers will hit roadblocks, no matter what. These stopping points will need to be addressed in a timely, professional manner with a solution that will ease their concerns. 

Having a strong relationship with customers is the bedrock that turns a good brand into a great one. This is where the customer support team comes in. 

Some of the roles of a Customer Support member includes:

• Creating and maintaining long-lasting relationships with the clients.
• Establishing expertise about the product/service being inquired about. 
• Providing prompt resolutions to customer queries.
• Ensuring that account issues are documented, resolved, and followed up with. 
• Assisting clients with a knowledge base of information regarding other concerns, questions, or issues they may be experiencing.

Marketing Manager 

The famous Peter Drucker once said, “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits [them] and sells itself.” It’s the marketing manager's job to generate interest in your brand, exposing retailers to your products in a way that is meaningful to your prospects and customers. 

Often, marketing managers will work directly with the organization’s sales managers, sales reps, and customer support team to ensure they are speaking to the exact pain points that their retailers are expressing.

Roles and responsibilities for B2B Marketing Managers include: 

• Creating engaging marketing strategies that highlight specific solutions for pain points. 
• Ideating, developing, and publishing digital marketing campaigns through Google Ads, social media ads, blogs, website content, landing pages, emails, and more. 
• Facilitating marketing partnerships with other industry leaders.
• Determining tradeshow and conference promotion opportunities.

Sales Rep

Let’s not forget about the sales reps, the final role on our list but one of the most critical. Sales reps are a crucial component of your brand’s  B2B and wholesale operation. They are the ones in charge of pursuing leads, solving prospects' pain points with your company's product, finalizing deals, and ensuring the deal renewals happen smoothly. 

Responsibilities of a B2B Sales Rep include: 

• Strategizing how to best connect to and build relationships with future prospects.
• Responding to prospective clients’ questions and providing solutions to their concerns. 
• Arranging and performing product demonstrations.
• Educating retailers on the value of the product and services being sold.

If you aren’t fielding a strong team of digitally enabled reps, you run the risk of losing doors. Retailers want to work with great reps, and the brands that are supporting reps - who in turn support retailer success - are the brands that earn their spot on store shelves.

That’s your team, in a nutshell. The four key roles that will be the cornerstone of your brand’s B2B wholesale channel. Want to know more, or curious about how Envoy B2B can drive success for every member of your team?  Get in touch, we’re happy to talk.