Should You Move from B2C to B2B? Here's How a Star Sales Exec Built a $1 Billion Business

Transform your business from a consumer to a business market model, with sales leader Niyanta Khatri.

If you're responsible for your organization's sales strategy, you know that precisely defining your target audience is essential. Choosing whether to sell to consumers (B2C) or businesses (B2B) is probably the biggest decision you must make.

But what if you decide to change strategies? For existing B2C companies, switching to a B2B strategy may make sense from a long-term financial growth perspective, but actually pulling it off is extremely difficult.

We talked to Niya Khatri on how she took Logitech’s video collaboration unit from a $1 million B2C to a $1 billion B2B business within two years.

Learn what it takes to refocus your sales strategy to business customers and how to get started building your B2B sales, marketing, and revenue-enablement teams to get the best results.

Transitioning your SMB to B2B sales

The first question is, why would you want to do this?

Switching from a B2C to a B2B model can be advantageous for small or midsize businesses (SMBs) for several reasons, including a more stable cash flow, reduced production, marketing, delivery, and customer service costs due to economies of scale, and larger transaction volumes.

“One of the top reasons is revenue consolidation and retention, with a focus on accounts rather than end users,” says Khatri. “In B2C, there are a lot of individual users and customizations required when it comes to products, so it’s harder to retain them year-over-year.”

However, transitioning from a B2C to a B2B model is not straightforward. It requires changes in marketing strategies, sales approaches, and even product design, Khatri points out.

“Still, for SMBs seeking higher and more consistent growth, it can be a smart move,” she says.

How can SMBs get started?

When it comes to switching to B2B sales, SMBs will face unique challenges compared to their larger competitors. For starters, they generally must be much more frugal compared to enterprises, and they tend to have fewer resources.

The biggest challenge is switching your company’s mindset from focusing on designing a really good product to prioritizing a solid business growth model, says Khatri.

"When you’ve been doing something for a long time and doing it well, this transition [from B2C to B2B] can be hard."

Niya Khatri

Sales and business development specialist

Tap in to key foundational metrics when building your B2B team 

Khatri emphasizes that it all hangs on what stage your company is in and what your key goals are for the fiscal year. You will probably want to start building your B2B team, but who you hire first will be dependent on your goals.

It’s best to go back to the drawing board and think about activation, engagement, and conversion as the three most important metrics and strategize on putting the people most responsible for them into position. Do you have existing team members who can fulfill those roles, or do you need to hire?

“For instance, for activation, do you have a marketing team capable of doing outbound campaigns?” asks Khatri.  “What about conversion? Do you have team members to convert marketing leads into sales opportunities? If not, that’s when you start building out your sales team.”

And once you have people selling and converting, what about engagement? How do you build the reassurance that the customer that pays you today will come back and pay you again next year? This might call for a customer success manager. And don’t stop when your sales team is hired.

“As a business, the most underrated employees are your revenue enablement leaders who are needed to connect the dots between sales, product, and your customers,” says Khatri.

Invest in the tech tools that prioritize your business needs

Each business will be unique, stresses Khatri. That’s why it’s important to analyze your own needs when making investments in technology.

“For example, for startups, the CEO or CFO may be the first salesperson,” says Khatri.

In that case, a full-blown customer relationship management (CRM) system isn’t the right fit, yet.

Later, as the business grows, CRM software or other sales tools can be brought in to manage the sales pipeline.

Next steps for SMBs looking to grow fast 

For SMBs considering moving from a B2C to B2B business model—whether for a more stable cash flow, or to reduce production, marketing, delivery, and customer service costs due to economies of scale—they need to start by focusing on accounts, not individual customers, and on engaging deeply with those accounts to generate recurring revenue flows.

Also, don’t underestimate the importance of sales enablement.

“When you have a product and a sales team, people assume you're done,” she says. “But you need to enable your salespeople to sell the products that your product people have delivered in an effective way and collect feedback to give back to the product team.”

Khatri’s final parting advice to SMBs wanting to accelerate growth is to develop compelling content, build a following online, and go back again and again to your original customers.

After all, in today's world of digital sales, it's important to engage with people who are already buying from you, she says. “And it's important for you to spend quality time with them because they are the backbone of your business."

Khatri's own lessons from her journey into B2B sales

Logitech embarked on its move to a B2B model in 2018. Khatri, who was senior sales and business development manager for the video collaboration group at the time, spearheaded the effort. The motivation was customer retention.

“With products such as a Logitech mouse or keyboard, there’s a lot of uniqueness that caters to individuals,” she says. “But we were not able to convert and retain these users on a quarterly or annual basis.”

Logitech’s video collaboration group, which produces items such as webcams and headsets, saw even before COVID-19 hit that business leaders were rethinking their workplace environments and moving more toward video conferencing. The group saw an opportunity to sell in bulk to distributed companies wanting to connect employees working in remote locations.

Then, when the pandemic hit and everybody was suddenly forced to work from home, “we got busy,” said Khatri. “That's when we were able to really monetize our leads and make our customers long-term veterans of Logitech technology.”

Transitioning your sales strategy so radically can be a massive undertaking, sending shockwaves through your team—so getting them up to speed and supporting them is key to the success of your new focus.

Khatri points to fostering connections and mentorships, as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

   Inclusion considerations when building your B2B team

These days, many diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts by businesses are under fire. But Khatri is a firm believer that DEI is not just the right thing for businesses to practice but that teams built with inclusion in mind are higher performing.

Unfortunately, she says, a lot of companies talk about inclusion and diversity but rarely walk the walk. She has partnered with Cynthia Barnes, the CEO and founder of the National Association of Women Sales Professionals (NAWSP) to create the organization’s Sales Inclusion Certification program.^[1] NAWSP sees DEI initiatives as the centerpiece of modern sales strategies.

Currently, 50 companies have been certified, a process that takes about two months, and results in an annual gold, platinum, or silver designation. The certification must be completed every year as leadership changes can shift a company from DEI leader to laggard.

   On the importance of mentorship

A close cousin to DEI is mentoring. Khatri is the founder of 6 Feet Closer, a mentorship program for women, which got its name from the pandemic practice of individuals being careful to stay six feet apart to avoid infection.

“During the pandemic, a lot of people lost jobs,” said Khatri. “Amid all the uncertainty in the job market, I personally felt like women were feeling the stress more than our male counterparts.”

She started small—with an Excel spreadsheet that matched women in need with influential people to help them get jobs or otherwise support them.

The program exploded due to pent-up demand and has turned into a national mentorship platform where women can go to seek advice and recommendations about everything from salary negotiations to salary transparency to how to transition back into the workforce after having kids.

This type of mentorship is something Khatri wishes she had to better prepare for her first leadership role. She would have loved to spend more time with experienced people and had more of a structured training process because, “imposter syndrome is going to be kicking you through the roof in times like that."

“I feel like I learned how to be a good leader and manager years after I started acting in the role,” Khatri adds.

The community she created through 6 Feet Closer is helping fill these gaps. “Today, we’ve got over 3,000 participants,” she says.

   Looking back over past accomplishments

When asked what she is most proud of in her career, Khatri said, “Being an advocate for women in sales throughout the United States and the world.”

She’s still always learning as she gets exposed to different people and situations. “In passing that knowledge to a new generation, I’m doing what I can to help others.”

She is also understandably proud of being part of Logitech’s pioneering team that took the video collaboration group from $100 million to $1 billion within just two years. “It was during the pandemic, too, so everything had to be done virtually,” she says. “It was the hardest thing I’d ever done but also one of the most rewarding.”