When it comes to persuasion, one of the most delicate exercises for salespeople is to demonstrate the added value they bring to their customers.
In the sale of products and services, or in the sale of complex global offers, successful salespeople can no longer simply present the advantages of their offer in relation to their customers' needs and motivations. In a context of fierce competition, often resulting in pressure on prices, the salesperson must be able to demonstrate that the price of his or her products and services is lower than the added value they provide.
While the principle is simple and well known, implementing a real value selling approach is more complex.
To achieve this, the salesperson must master 3 key phases:
1 - Know the different sources of value that your offer can bring to a customer.
While this may seem an obvious prerequisite, we are often surprised to find that sales people don't necessarily know how to answer the question: "How can my offer help a prospect develop his or her own value?
2 - Evaluate latent value-added potential with the customer, or have it evaluated.
This stage, which comes after a "classic" discovery approach, comes up against the limits of customers' knowledge of their own value chain. Prospects are not always equipped with the information that could make them aware of the latent sources of value within their company. Yet it is precisely during this key phase that the salesperson needs to demonstrate his or her pedagogical skills, in order to make "visible" the sources of value that were not previously visible. The companies that are most successful at this stage have mostly developed protocols and tools to offer genuine value-creation audits.
3 - Demonstrate the superiority of its global offering in relation to the previously assessed sources of value.
When it comes to arguing the case for value, there's one rule we can all live by: "convert your words into figures". Valuing is not the same as arguing. If the register of argumentation is that of words, the register of valorization is that of money, and therefore of figures. This third phase in the value selling process offers sales forces fantastic opportunities for progress.
Ask a machine-tool manufacturer, an IT services company or a bank and observe how difficult it is for their sales people to answer the simple question: "Show me how much I could earn with the help of your services".
Selling value is a major challenge. If you don't give your sales people the means to do this, you'll end up giving competitors who adopt strategies to win market share by lowering prices a veritable boulevard. This approach requires tools and support, but the return on investment is undoubtedly one of the fastest for any company facing a competitive environment.