Today Selling is Tougher Than Ever! Become Customer Centric

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Today Selling is Tougher Than Ever! Become Customer Centric

Written by Stu Schlackman

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4 Secrets To Selling Value Versus Price

You've told your prospects in so much detail about all the great value they will receive but they just don't seem to get it. You know that if only they could see the value in your products and services then price would not be such an issue.

Do you find that your prospects are focused on the price of your products and services and often pressure you to give them discounts?

Here are four secrets, if learned and applied, will guarantee that your prospects will see the value in your products and services so that price is no longer the issue. These four secrets are commonsense and obvious once you know them but in selling what is commonsense and obvious is rarely applied.

Secret #1: Forget about selling and trying to get your prospect to buy your products and services.

The common trap, that you don't want to fall into, is to start selling your products and services from the very first conversation with your prospect. Instead, you want to forget about selling and trying to get your prospect to buy your products and services. Just have a conversation and ask the right questions so you can understand their problem and determine, if in fact, you can help them. I call this initial phase the 'Discover Phase' and it is where you should be spending the majority of your time in the sales process.

Secret #2: Have your prospect tell you the value (instead of you tell them).

If you tell your prospect about the value you offer, they may or may not see this as relevant, of interest or of value. However if you ask the right questions so your prospect tells you the value of solving their problem, they will then see this value as relevant, of interest and of value. The big difference is that they have told you (and themselves) the value as opposed to you telling them.

Secret Number #3: Have valuable conversations.

The conversations you want to have with your prospect should include so much value that they actually thank you for speaking with them and, in fact, look forward to having more conversations with you. How do you have such conversations? It's easy really. You see probably no one has asked your prospect powerful questions which help them get clarity around their problem and what it is costing them. This sort of clarity and information is of great value to your prospect. They will see that you have a valuable skill and they will want to have future conversations with you to continue gaining clarity in other areas. They will see having conversations and having a relationship with you as valuable.

Secret #4: Add your value to their value.

Once your prospect has told you the value they will receive from solving their problem, they will be receptive to listening to how you can add even more value. Not only will they be receptive to listening to how you can add more value but they will also be appreciative of the additional value you can add. This is because, at this stage, they will have effectively sold themselves on taking action to solve the problem and the more value they can see that they will receive; the easier it is for them to justify buying your products and services.

In summary, as a consequence of not selling while you ask the right questions, your prospect will see both the value in solving their problem plus they will see the value in having a relationship with you. You are then in a position to help them justify a buying decision by adding more value to what they have told themselves. This all leads to a decision based on value and not on price.

Many sales training programs miss the mark since it’s all about the company, their products and services and cookie cutter sales methodologies are taught without considering the specific sales environment. Is it a long sales cycle or short? Multiple decision makers or one? Complex solutions that span across the entire company or point solutions? How does this impact what our approach should be?

Many sales professionals start their sales career at new companies with training. Training is typically a mix of both skills development and product/services training. While this is not all that bad, it does set up the mindset for the sales person to lead with products and services when they call on customers and prospects. And why not? That’s what their comfortable with!

Today selling is tougher than ever.
There’s more supply than demand, more competition, longer sales cycles and most importantly customers are more knowledgeable than ever before thanks to the internet and the abundance of information. As Michael Bosworth says in Customer Centric Selling - “The traditional view of selling lays the foundation for confrontation, rather than collaboration when buyers and sellers interact.” I couldn’t agree more. We both believe that traditional sales training reinforces the sellers approach to manipulate buyers. The old mantra for sales professionals is “the selling begins when the buyer says no” and “every buyer objection is a selling opportunity.” Is this really true?

Many sales training programs miss the mark since it’s all about the company, their products and services and cookie cutter sales methodologies are taught without considering the specific sales environment. Is it a long sales cycle or short? Multiple decision makers or one? Complex solutions that span across the entire company or point solutions? How does this impact what our approach should be?

You can’t convey your value until you understand the real needs of the customer. When sales people lead with their solution all they can convey is product features. Features will lead to the same customer response every time “how much does it cost”? When opportunities are lost from the sales person’s pipeline, they’ll repeatedly hear the same reason - either wrong product or wrong price. Or as Michael Bosworth says, “Warning! Objects in the forecast may be further away and smaller than they appear.” This is what’s called being product or solution focused. Leading from our perspective and what the company has trained us to do. The close dates in the forecast have nothing to do with the buyers’ agenda, but correspond to the sellers’ agenda. There is a better way- being customer centric.

Let’s look at 3 key points that will help you be customer centric.

The first is to understand the customer from their point of view. We all get excited about how unique our solutions are in the industry and we immediately want to get into presentation mode. Hold off! It should be the last thing we do. First ask the customer to share their goals and objectives. Once you understand those you can eventually ask what challenges they have. It’s easier for the customer to share their goals than to admit their problems. Now you can better understand if there’s a fit (our solutions that can meet their goals) so that you can convey what they value.

The second point is to ask relevant questions. Qualifying is the easy stuff, but getting to the heart of the matter takes great listening skills and going deep instead of wide. Good questions will even help the customer discover their own reasons for not being able to achieve their goals. If you want better answers from the customer, ask better questions. The goal of the sales person is to guide the customer to what they think the solution should be - hopefully yours!

The third point is to meet the decision maker(s). You cannot sell anything to someone who can’t buy. Many years ago I was building a relationship with the Chief Technology Officer of a large firm. We met each week and when it was time to present our proposal, he said he would not be the one making the decision. Shame on me! I’m supposed to be the sales professional. I guess you can say I was more of a “professional visitor.” Being customer-centric means understanding who will make the decision to buy. The higher up in the chain of command that you call; the chances are your sales cycle will be shorter than starting at the bottom of the totem pole.

Remember that being customer centric defines the buyer’s cycle, while being solution centric defines the sales cycle. Customers don’t follow the sales person’s cycle!

Good selling!

Stu Schlackman
		About the author:
		Stu has spent over 25 years in sales management, sales and sales training with world class companies like Digital Equipment Corporation, Cap Gemini and EDS. His focus is on “the application” of the skills and techniques he shares. He is the author of Don't Just Stand There, Sell Something and Four People You Should Know. .