What are the implications for selling value?
Differentiation becomes possible.In complex sales, everyone is selling value. As matter of fact, they have been doing it for a long time, and a lot of folks are pretty good at it. However, if you move away from just asking about customer needs from a present timeframe perspective and move to exploring the future, you are pursuing the understanding of value differently than most others. If you can position your solution to help customers build their future, you are bringing value at a different level.
Sales gets a seat at the innovation table. With a better understanding of what customers want to be, sales can provide marketing and engineering with ideas about future innovations. This means marketing and engineering aren’t the only source to identify future innovations for products and solutions. Sales gets a seat at the table because they are sharing which innovations would bring value to their customers.
Partnering becomes a reality. Building and managing relationships is a key ingredient for sales. If you are walking down the road with a customer and helping them to achieve their future, you become more than the average supplier. You are laying the groundwork for becoming a Level Five trusted advisor, and partners like that are treated differently.
Selling value versus selling product and price has been and will continue to be an important cornerstone for sales success. So, taking a fresh perspective from time to time on how to get better at it is time well spent.