In today’s market, the ability to sell value is critical and salespeople need to be able to connect with prospects at a deeper level to understand where offerings can have the most impact for that specific customer.
To help achieve this here are 4 basic skills of Value Selling
Clarify the business issues the buyer is trying to solve and how these fit into the bigger picture
There is a tendency for buyers with very narrow and specific needs to focus more on price. There are likely to be many potential solution offerings that could solve the specified needs and they are often treated as commodities, evaluated more on price. Salespeople need to be able to paint a bigger picture view, increasing the perceived need, urgency and focus on value drivers rather than just price.
Understand the buying process and the decision-makers involved
Each customer will go through predictable steps in the buying process and to sell value there needs to be a clear understanding of the process to support it. What are the steps? What decision-markers are likely to be involved, what role do they play in the process and at what point will they be involved in the process? Critically salespeople must understand how they can engage with each of these decision-makers!
Targeting approach based on what stage a decision-maker is at in the process
To be in sync with buyers there has to be a clear understanding of what stage they’re at. Are they still trying to determine if the need warrants a specific solution or are they ready to evaluate vendors against specific buying criteria? Either way, the approach has to be appropriate according to the stage.
Accentuate differentiators that matter most to the buyer
By definition, value-based selling is about the perceived value and not focused on price. Salespeople must have a clear view of what specific features of their offering represent strong positive differentiators, and where competitors have the upper hand, to accentuate the differentiators that will have the most impact for the buyer.
What next?
This is by no means the whole story for value-based selling but developing these four skills will enable salespeople to develop a deeper understanding of buyers and create more business wins based on value and not price.
