Better is the enemy of done
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Author Jim Collins once noted that 'good is the enemy of great' having in mind that companies that 'do well' rarely have the incentive to really innovate and push things to the limit. I however more often have in mind the phrase by Voltaire - The better is the enemy of the good. So often I struggle to make a sales document perfect, to take care of the layout, to explain everything in detail. I'm a perfectionist, with all the burdens of that word, and believe me - the final result is rarely perfect. My point is - in B2B no one really cares about the perfection of the sales pitch - people are too result and value driven to care about the bells and whistles. Even in startup/VC pitching you will get better results with a good product and black-and-white slides than with mediocre product all wrapped up in celofane.
I was really impressed by the marketing style of the guys from Automattic/Wordpress. One email, the offer (including the pricing) in bullet points, no formatting (plain text), no images. It was actually easier to digest, forward around and make comments because of all of this. Such style removes all of the reasons for procrastination, speeds up the work (you can keep offers like that in your 'canned responses' in Gmail) and makes tracking everything easier (no files flying around). But most of all - it is faster to get it done. And sending 10 imperfect offers to prospective partners/clients beats the hell out of sending 2 that are polished - just because of natural conversion, only some of your prospects will be willing and able to purchase/sign at that particular moment. That is why you want to access as many of them as you can. That is why better is the enemy of done.
The length of the bizdev cycle
Doing business development and early stage sales in a startup is often frustrating. Many of your actions like reaching out to potential customers and establishing a constant communication take week. That's why until you find the product/market fit it is wise to stay lean and watch your burn rate very carefully. But it's also very important not to let the slow progress discourage you. Many of the actions you undertake will bring results long after you wrote them off as losses.
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It is very important to schedule your energy, and most of all financing accordingly. The rough rule for a full bizdev cycle (from early customer contact to first closed sales) is 6 months. However, you often will hear about contracts signed after showing a powerpoint presentation. In other stories it takes 1 or 2 years and several pivots before first revenue hits the door. In B2B products, I'm pretty much sure the length of the cycle is strictly correlated with the weight and urgency of the problem you're solving for the client. Sometimes you can have a brilliant product that will save the user millions of dollars annually, but unless someone there really cares about these savings (for instance it's all in a budget of a single department) the progress may be slow, if at all.
Call corporate people
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I don't know how many emails corporate people receive, but judging by their response time and frequency they're probably getting more regular mail then I'm receiving spam. Most of it is of course irrelevant CC and FYI information, but unfortunately my message get's lot in the noise. The other part of day that takes most of those peoples time are meetings - I would say for some of them it must be over 50% of daily activities. That leaves them very little time to do actual work. Answering my email, which usually requires additional action or communicating with a colleague is just not going to fit into it. That's why I call them. They usually can give me a straight answer in five minutes and we can push things forward for instance because I'll do the job their colleague was supposed to deliver. More then that, since they're so rarely at their desk, I'm also probably the only person they managed to talk to that day, which makes me stand out of the crowd of people that try to maintain communication with them.
The hard part is knowing when to call them - the general rule is early mornings and late afternoons, but individual schedules vary. Whenever possible, ask this question when you're exchanging contact details with a person. Make sure to also establish a good relationship with their PAs, as often those angels will get you calls normally impossible to accomplish.
Who is in your network of contacts?
CC Marco Bellucci
Individual relationships are an incredibly valuable asset in all stages of business development. Having said that, I also have to state that quantity doesn't equal value in that case. But I want to make a different point now - did you check how is your network distributed, regardless of it's size and 'objective' quality? Who do you actually know?
You may know influential people in the finance/banking industry, because of your job history or education. But right now you're trying to grow a business that has products for corporate IT departments. And all of your contacts are sitting in the trading rooms or marketing divisions. Passing a message through several 'ears' in an organisation is usually good enough to seriously distort it, or completely loose it - before it reaches someone you should really talk to. Quite often it's better to find another 'lead' into the organisation rather then try to push the message internally.
So I encourage you to do a quick check, and really evaluate your network in terms of your current goals. Be honest with yourself, don't rate someone high just because you had (more than) a few drinks back in the days. And if you find that some important parts are missing, you can always ask your current contacts for direct introductions to highly relevant people. If not, you can go and read my post on growing your network here 
Social Selling
Now this title might seem a bit weird a couple years ago, when you really needed to be face to face with your client in order to make a sale. But today in the time of e-commerce, everything-as-a-service, virtual currency and goods it's not so obvious anymore. Online businesses rarely meet their customers in person. Quite often (if customer is fairly satisfied with the product) they don't even exchange a single word, except for the credit card details.
Thus said, customers didn't stop being people - even if those people represent companies or organizations. How do you make contact with them then? You have e-mail, IM, blogs, Twitter, social platforms and other tools to help you - but do you really use them all? Probably not, and quite possibly you shouldn't. Because what you use should really be contextual to your business, or rather to the way your customers are used to communicate. If you're selling to people in their twenties Twitter will probably work. But if your customers are their grandparents you will have to stick to the old-school like phone or standard mail. In middle ages the best place to communicate with clients was being literally on the streets because that's where they were. And you couldn't send them letters, because most of them couldn't read. That's pretty much the same right now - they can read, they just don't know how to get your message.
So if you're running an online business make sure you let your customers communicate with you pre and post sales in the way that you really thought through and dedicate yourself to. Because if you put e-mail address on your website, and don't respond to it people will be disappointed. And they will let everyone else know about it in their way: Twitter, Facebook or their local BINGO club. Also - make sure it's a two-way and active communication. It's not enough to run Twitter account to broadcast company promotions. You have to react to people's complains or praise about your products. You should participate in conversations that are relevant to your business, even if they're not about you.
Internet is 'the street' of today. Make sure you're really on it. Because being social is not only about the buzzword - it's about communication with people. Your people.
