Selling Value To Get Results

By Bob Beck

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Selling Value: The New Required Foundation for Growth-Minded Organizations and Individuals
Are you sure that you’re providing value to your prospects and customers? Even if your answer is an emphatic yes, you might want to take a closer look. According to my experience, sixty percent of all companies feel that they aren’t getting true value from their suppliers. That number almost certainly includes some of your customers. The danger is you may be assuming that the fault lies with them - maybe it’s an implementation issue or maybe they’re frustratingly blind to the value that you can see in the solutions you offer. Either way it doesn’t matter.

Value truly is in the eye of the beholder. If your prospect can’t perceive the value you provide, it doesn’t exist. Perception is reality when is comes to selling value. The gap between the “value perception” and the reality can often be traced back to cross-functional dysfunction, a term that basically means your teams are not working together, or even worse, they may be in conflict with each other. (Sales, pre-sales, post-sales, marketing, R&D, etc.) For example, R&D creates new products that have little connection with the prospect’s real issues. Marketing generates leads but is not held accountable for the quality. Salespeople merely “present” solutions instead of seeking out relevant information on what the prospect’s real requirements are. They often “prematurely elaborate” features and benefits to prospects. In the confusion, customers default to the lowest common denominator - price - which they do understand. When various departments are operating on different pages, a company’s value proposition is often diluted by the time it reaches the prospect. The customer perceives, rightly or wrongly, that the value they are being offered simply isn’t there, it isn’t unique amongst the alternative solutions, or they doubt they will receive the value being promised - all of which leads to what is referred to as commoditization. Companies ultimately watch their margins erode as price becomes the driving force of the customer’s decision. In order to close this value gap, organizations must:

a) Make the sales team learn how to relate to the executive level early in the sales cycle and have a sincere interest in understanding the issues.

b) Ensure all relationships at this level must be developed with mutual respect. (www.MutualRespect.net)

c) Deliver optimal results, capable of leveraging value to the highest level of the prospect’s business,

d) Ensure that prospects have identified and purchased the best answer to their issues, and

e) Provide solution implementation and value enhancement strategies that enable prospects to achieve the value that they anticipated.

To achieve this goal, a company must end departmental and sales dysfunction. It must replace “cost cutting focus” with “value creation focus.” In other words, creating and selling value must become everyone’s responsibility. Building a culture in which value creation is on the forefront of everyone’s mind. You must effect sweeping changes in four areas of your company: R&D, marketing, sales, and customer service. Here are some suggestions to get you started:

R&D: Begin with a tangible and compelling customer issue. When R&D is isolated from customers, it can develop products based on faulty assumptions about value. Chances are these assumptions could be inconsistent with the customer’s perspective. By the time a company discovers the disconnects, time and money have been lost. Organizations must look through the eyes of their prospects and customers and develop products and services that address their needs but you must constantly validate your value assumptions. Growth minded organizations must assure they can convert our value assumption into value achieved for their prospects and customers. There is no such thing as a solution without an issue. Prospects may not be aware of the issue that the solution addresses (that is a marketing challenge), but there must be an actual issue with physical symptoms. To be consistently successful, solutions that sellers define as opportunities must be intimately linked to actual prospects issues. An opportunity without a issue is a contradiction in terms and a disaster in the making.

Sales Messaging: You have your solution, which has been designed to solve an issue that your prospects and customers are currently facing, or will experience. Next, you need to create your message based on a thorough understanding of that issue and its solution. Messages can be communicated in the “negative present.” They could say, in essence: These are the symptoms of the issue you may have, and if you are noticing this evidence, we may have the solution. This type of message readies the prospect for a diagnosis, a dialog, rather than a presentation. Every successful growth minded organization must have a common language, sales approach and messaging everyone follows. There is not time or patience in today’s market for a “make it up as you go approach”. The approach should help salespeople through the diagnostic process that is used in solution development, forecasting and account control.

Selling: Teach the art of investigative conversations. Traditionally, a salesperson’s goal has been to close the sale, to get the signed order, to hit the numbers, to bring in the business…to win. Companies employing the Quid Pro Quo Sales approach (www.salesbuilders.com) have the same say destination in mind but we teach the sales professionals to work more like physicians. They provide high-quality diagnostic services, prescribe and treat responsibly, and attempt to ensure optimal health for their “patients” (the prospects). That means their focus is on a high-quality decision—whether that decision is to buy or not to buy. The Quid Pro Quo sales process is a model for today’s approach to building value through the sales process. It’s easy to see why salespeople become key players on both teams: their own and their prospects’. Organizations need a team of “Sales Doctors”. Not only are they advocates for their prospects (rather than adversaries), but they also further their own company’s cause by weeding out prospects that aren’t qualified.

Customer Service: Keep an eagle eye on impending issues. Customer service professionals need to ensure that customers attain the valuable results they anticipated when they purchased the organizations solutions. That means not just solving issues that crop up, but actually watching for and diagnosing issues that customers don’t realize they have. They have the observable symptoms, but they are not associating them with the organization’s solutions. You can see the viability of this situation when you consider that service/support people are often the closest to the customer and are therefore well-positioned to diagnose solution opportunities. Again, as the glue that holds the entire process together, marketing can capitalize on these values, and for the most part untapped resources, by creating conduits for such feedback. These feedback mechanisms connect the end of the value chain back to its beginning. The information that’s captured by customer service employees actually flows back into the process of developing the organization's ever evolving value message. Thus, the conclusion of one revolution around the cycle becomes the impetus for another.

Think of how you would respond to a solution provider who brought these capabilities to your door. A resource with these capabilities could undoubtedly make a major impact on your business performance and your personal success. They would not only ensure that you selected the best solution for your hard-earned dollars, but they would also assist in achieving a successful implementation, help you quantify and maximize the return on your investment, and finally, ensure the sustainability of your optimized business performance. This resource sounds like a highly valued business partner, a source of continual competitive advantage. Isn’t this the position we all want to occupy in your prospects’ and customers’ minds? Visit www.Salesbuilders.com to learn about the Quid Pro Quo Sales approach that has been taught in ten countries with unsurpassed results.