Editor’s note: In Springfield-based author and business consultant Mark Holmes’ forthcoming book, he answers the questions: Why are salespeople struggling to differentiate from competitors and communicate customer value? What makes them miss annual sales targets?
In “The 5 Rules of Megavalue Selling,” Holmes tells the struggles and triumphs of a sales representative at a fictional yet realistic company. Leaning on annual studies completed 2013-16 that reveal the inability of salespeople to articulate a compelling, differentiated value proposition, he boils it down to five rules with the acronym of VALUE.
Below are excerpts from the book, due out in May, to set the ground rules.
V. Verify Value Drivers
Accurately identifying the customer’s value drivers is the chief priority for sales professionals. Without it, winning the sale is virtually impossible.
In one significant way, customers haven’t changed for over a century: They still want to deal with a salesperson they can trust, someone who will take the time to understand their true needs. Salespeople who know how to ask questions strategically have an advantage over rivals that don’t.
A. Adapt Your Value Message
Customers are won over to a value message for different reasons.
Great salespeople adapt their value message to each customer’s value drivers. This single talent is so powerful that often you won’t need to have product superiority to win a great sales opportunity, but you will need to create high customer perceived value. By aligning the value proposition with the buyer’s value drivers, the salesperson helps them make an accurate decision based on the positive difference the solution will have on their issues.
L. Listen
Listening is a choice and a skill that makes selling value easier.
The benefits from effective listening for salespeople include the ability to develop trusting relationships, improve likeability, make a positive impression, process information more accurately, remember facts more clearly, earn respect and create confidence for the solutions offered. To a great extent, this strengthens the salesperson’s influence because good listeners don’t usually make mistakes like misinterpretation, interrupting people, inattention or daydreaming, all of which can hurt the buyer-seller relationship.
U. Understand The Buy
Knowing an account’s buying process, timeline and decision influencers is like having the blueprints for constructing a building.
A salesperson must be aware of the dynamics affecting a customer’s purchase and watch for sudden developments that can create hesitancy, or urgency. It helps to build thorough understanding of the internal politics, policies and business processes.
E. Emphasize Evidence
Customers put faith in facts, not in worn-out claims. Selling value effectively requires gathering the necessary evidence to justify value to uncertain or uninterested buyers.
There is usually at least one and most often several points of separation from competitors. Of the many advantages that could be emphasized, a decision influencer is attracted to only a select few that matter to them. Therefore, it’s critical to understand the customer’s issues and desires, and be able to present compelling evidence.
