The B-Team - How the Business Team drives Customer Satisfaction

Common corporate nomenclature often assigns the Business team with the shortened "B-Team” or “B-Side". The label might serve as a convenient abbreviation simplifying meeting/calendar subject lines, but more interestingly, "B-Team” can be indicative of the way a product-oriented founder views the business. For many leaders, business actually is an afterthought to the A-Team - Product/Engineering. Moreover, the Sales organization is seen as a coin operated function with the single purpose of driving revenue regardless of product-market fit or market demand.

A properly hired and trained sales organization should do much more than sell features dreamt up by the Product org. The Sales team is on the front line of untapped markets while Operations (Client Services) is normally the first to learn the needs of existing business. Taken together, insights from both teams can be invaluable in shaping product development and prioritizing feature launches based on market requirements.

There are countless tactics that can empower the B-Side to help your Product team build the best products for the market, but we will focus on a handful here.

1. Publicize the Company Vision: Publish a forward-looking roadmap for the B-Side to test with clients and prospects. While your Product Marketing team is normally tasked with soliciting market feedback, their time is limited and likely your Sales organization outnumbers your Product Marketing team. The B-Side can help you understand if a “game-changing feature” is really special to customers or simply an academic exercise that appeals to a small set of internal product managers and engineers.

2. Share Future Developments: When sharing the roadmap, include some items that are in the product backlog as they may not be a priority to build today but if enough clients highlight a specific item as a need (specifically a need that can be monetized), it may warrant a new ranking on your roadmap. Also, consider your software development lifecycle when disclosing your roadmap to internal teams. It is important to share features that are far enough from launch that market feedback can alter development but not so far that the features are vaporware.

3. Create a Formal Feedback Loop: Discuss implementation using cross-functional sessions to surface ideas and discuss implementation. Yes, actually invite Sales and Client Services to meet with Product teams. On the surface this suggestion may seem like a foreign concept as many Sales and Product teams are often at odds but it will avoid misinterpretation that can arise from poorly written Jira (etc.) tickets. The secondary benefit is a closer-knit company where all members are exposed to and value opinions of other contributors.

4. Close the Loop with Clients: Notify the customer about their role in the new product development and thank them for the suggestion. Customers love to know that they have been helpful and feel a much tighter bond with a company who takes their feedback and builds with their needs in mind.

5. Reward the Sales Team: When you do build features suggested by the B-Side, be sure to credit the team member who originally surfaced the need and reward them for asking questions and not only for producing revenue. Many companies expect Sales to simply produce revenue or new accounts. B-Side should be motivated to uncover client & prospect needs, surface these needs to Product and close the loop with the source of the need. A senior and more mature sales rep will do this by default but less seasoned contributors may not understand the importance of this data-capturing exercise. In fact, a rep who actively recruits feedback from clients and debates these requirements (both internally and externally) will be much more likely to achieve success from a revenue production standpoint.

Understanding how Sales and Client Services organizations can benefit a company beyond their primary responsibilities (revenue and client support) will help you better shape role requirements ultimately interviewing candidates through a wider lens. Your customers will appreciate the fact their primary contacts actually solicit their opinions and that you take their requests seriously. Moreover, you will be much more likely to engineer products relevant to your target market.