As any top salesperson knows, the key to getting and keeping a customer is to discover their pain points and solving them. In B2B selling, those pain points are constantly evolving, so a salesperson's job is never done!

Of course, if you've ever spent time with a prospect who didn't buy, you have discovered a pain point of your own. It's not fun, it's not profitable, and you inevitably start to wonder about what opportunities you missed out on while you were focused on the un-closeable one. Selling to people who can't (or won't) buy is a huge drain!

When we talk about value add at VDB, we often consider how the VDB apps and ecosystem can be used to help you better qualify customers and solve pain points.  Here are some of the ways we can help.

If your prospects say they're frustrated because it's hard to compete with online sellers with thousands more items than they have, you've hit a pain point. If your prospects tell you how challenging it is to keep a website up-to-date alongside all their other retail responsibilities, you've hit a pain point. If your prospects tell you they're making due with less employees than they had before, and that they barely have time to get all their vendor calls and sourcing activities taken care of, you've discovered a pain point.

Pain is the first thing a salesperson should look for in their prospects, because pain is more likely than gain to start a customer on a buying journey. When you successfully identify a buyer pain and position it as something you can solve, you set yourself up to win that new customer.

Let's look at the three pain points we've already identified, and talk about how you can use VDB to help you solve it for your customers.

It's Hard to Stock Enough Inventory to Compete with Massive Online Sellers

Retail jewelers have been less and less comfortable with buying jewelry the past decade, moving all of us more heavily into a memo world. In the beginning, we talked about incentives to get people to buy in, but that's increasingly difficult to do. So how do you create a winning position for yourself in an atmosphere in which inventory buy-in continues to decline? But make sure it's your inventory customers are looking at every time they need goods.

The VDB app, with its rich visual interface and advanced search tools, makes it easy for retailers to search for diamonds, pre-qualify customers (using excellent photographs and 360-degree videos), and bring in the right goods at the right time. Get your inventory into VDB and make sure your retailers know they can find it there. Even better, let VDB create a private label version just for you!

It's Hard to Maintain a Dynamic Website Presence

One of retail store owners' biggest frustrations is having the budget to take thousands of pictures and having the time to write product descriptions for everything. So they let their websites stumble along, half effective (or less), and over time they will lose market share to competitors who can pay more attention to their online presence. That's not good for you!

You can help your clients compete online by encouraging them to offer your diamond (or lab-grown, or color gem, or jewelry) feed directly on their website. They immediately have access to thousands of products - products you can fill for them quickly. And with that additional value offering on their website, their web presence is likely to produce more ROI, which will give your customers the motivation and cash they need to continue to put energy into their vital online presence.

It's Hard to Get Everything Done

During the pandemic many retailers downsized, and we're still not back to business-as-usual (whatever that means!). The pandemic didn't cause this - it just strengthened a trend that was already in place. With tighter margins and more investment required for marketing, retailers are squeezed tight.

Who makes up the difference? The owners do!

Inventory sourcing always required a big investment of time, and this has only become greater as retailers stock slightly less while trying to compete with so many online sellers. It's great to sell out of suppliers' inventories, but it's not easy!

Enter VDB. Our in-app communication tools and buy/memo/hold features speed up the sourcing process and keep it organized. We didn't set out to create a purchasing productivity tool, but that's exactly what our clients say we've done! If you monitor the VDB app for communications from your clients, you can have sales and memos booked and out the door without waiting for return phone calls and email. The VDB app has become a vital private communication and supply chain tool for all our suppliers who use it in collaboration with their best retailers.

Leveraging pain points has always been an important part of the B2B game. With VDB, you can address your retailers' pain points effectively, quickly, and affordably, and get on with the business of moving inventory. VDB. It's all about the value add.