Episode 68: Digitally Assisted Sales For B2B eCommerce With Paul do Forno

The Hard Truth About B2B eCommerce podcast treads onward this week with an in-house episode welcoming the returning guest — Paul do Forno, one of the leading B2B eCommerce experts in the world and the Commerce practice lead for Deloitte Digital, to discuss digital sales and helping B2B business adopt more channels.

Paul do Forno is one of the leading B2B eCommerce experts in the world and is the Commerce practice lead for Deloitte Digital, the world’s largest eCommerce agency. He is a repeat guest in which we go deep into how eCommerce for B2B is so much more than simply bringing people to eCommerce and is really about assisting sales reps and helping companies become more omnichannel. There are so many ways to sell digitally that B2B eCommerce really needs to be about opening up flexibility to sell in many different ways.

Episode 68: Digitally Assisted Sales For B2B eCommerce With Paul do Forno

In this episode, co-hosts Isaiah Bollinger, CEO of Trellis, and Timothy Peterson, President & COO of Speir Digital, Inc, are welcoming Paul do Forno, one of the leading B2B eCommerce experts in the world and the Commerce practice lead for Deloitte Digital, to discuss

• Omnichannel B2B commerce
• How B2B commerce is really all things digital in B2B sales
• Making the selling process from one company to another easier
• Complexity of B2B Sales
• Differences between B2C and B2B experiences
• How to elevate the customer experience in B2B
• Resistance against all digital because the sales reps want to hold on to the culture of relationships
• Millennials’ attitude to digital transformation of B2B sales
• The importance of the sales team’s role in change management 
• The importance of the sales team’s role in change management 
• Increase in digital adoption rates due to workforce lacking after the pandemic
• How to holistically understand the data to work with sales

This podcast’s origin story

Podcasts are still a relatively new medium for content, but just because they are new doesn’t mean they lack power. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Podcasts have a unique ability to reach people on their time, whenever it is convenient for them – a way that previously did not majorly exist. Podcast listeners can take the information wherever they go and absorb it as they see fit. And that’s exactly what we are looking to do here. We want to reach a new audience of B2B eCommerce enthusiasts.

This podcast is all about B2B eCommerce. B2B is a different breed of eCommerce and it needs a different breed of Podcast. We get into the nitty-gritty of integrations, adoption, platforms, data and so much more regarding what makes B2B difficult to make successful for eCommerce!

We noticed that a few B2C podcasts exist on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, but nothing designed for the B2B eCommerce community. B2B and B2C eCommerce have a lot of overlap, but even more differences. Each has a different set of requirements and customer demands that impact project scope. Let’s call a spade a spade. B2B is harder, more complicated, and harder to market. But it is also a bigger piece of the pie. The eCommerce B2B roadmap to success is not as cut and dry as B2C and that’s why we have started this podcast.

B2C platforms like Magento and Shopify have large communities that support and have done the entre-level work of most projects. The same community does not exist for B2B, but we are starting to build it. The ecosystem may not be as mature, but as experts in the space, we hope this podcast will help some people wake up and reevaluate their online sales strategy.

The first podcast examines major trends around B2B eCommerce as well as answering all of the above questions.  Take a listen for yourself and let us know what you think!

We will be posting new episodes with special guests weekly. You can listen on our dedicated podcast website and download the podcast on all major channels: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Overcast, Pocket Cast, Castro, Castbox, Podchaser, Podcast Addict, Deezer, Listen Notes, and RSS Feed.