Many B2B organizations already practice some form or another of value selling — because most organizations understand they need to be driving key outcomes for buyers to succeed for the long-haul.
Yet the leading selling organizations approach value selling less as an abstract concept and more as a strategic approach to sustainable revenue performance. And in this approach, they follow these five leading practices to elevate their efforts.
1) EQUIPPING TEAMS WITH IDEAL CLIENT PROFILES
An ideal client profile helps your organization understand the buyer your organization has set-out to serve. This unifying asset provides a basis to align all buyer-facing teams. Product teams understand what problems to solve and in what context. Marketing agrees on which buyers to target, where to reach them and what matters most to them. Salespeople reinforce all this with a consistent engagements and value messaging approach.
In the end, when leadership takes the time to create this tool, organizations reduce Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and enhance operational efficiency by better deploying marketing and sales resources (e.g. marketing campaigns and sales prospecting are more targeted). Because your teams are engaging the right audiences with the right messaging, too, this helps accelerate deal velocity and increase win-rates.
2) ENABLING SELLERS WITH A POWERFUL VALUE PROPOSITION
Most sellers focus the messaging on the benefit their solution delivers. Yet a true value proposition starts with the buyer’s pain and also includes the outcomes they can expect by solving it with your solution.
If you can embrace the full recipe of a compelling value proposition (Pain > Solution > Gain > Proof), and incorporate that into all market-facing channels (e.g. website, collateral, marketing campaigns, sales prospecting scripts, discovery dialogues, proposal conversations, objection reframes), your salespeople make a stronger case to eliminate the “status quo” as a consideration, accelerate deal velocity, improve win-rates and enhance pricing power.
3) TRAINING SALESPEOPLE WITH ROLE-PLAYS AND SIMULATIONS
Sellers despise them, but it is better to put value selling skills into practice and work the nervousness and adjustments out before engaging a buyer. These sales training and reinforcement sessions work great for up-skilling teams, educating professionals on how to engage new buying personas with new value propositions and instilling the learnings so they become second nature. Make any mistakes in a “safe” environment versus on the battlefield, so adjustments can be made to mitigate risks and deliver desired outcomes.
4) CRAFTING TARGETED SALES PLAYS FOR KEY EVENTS
A sales play solidifies all your sales processes, practices and tools in one verified and qualified source. This value selling tool effectively activates teams to cross-sell solutions after an acquisition or merger. It can come in handy when launching a new solution to market. And it also can help your teams (marketing as well!) intelligently capitalize on a market trend or competitive advantage.
Sales plays typically include:
- The ideal client profile
- Sample / representative conversations (pitches, emails, proposal frameworks)
- Buying committee pains
- Discovery questions
- Differentiators
- Client value stories
- Objection reframes
5) PIVOTING BASED ON CONVERSATION INTELLIGENCE INSIGHTS
Many organizations have incorporated conversation intelligence (CI) software in their sales technology stack, gathering both qualitative (recorded calls / meetings / emails) and quantitative (analytics / trends / dashboards) insights. Leading organizations, though, leverage the CI information to enhance revenue performance.
The value of CI tools does not come from glancing at the dashboard now and again but rather by pivoting the go-to-market strategy and tactics according to what value selling insights are revealed in real-time. Maybe a new buyer member has joined a buying committee, and your team must adjust messaging. Maybe your leadership has spotted a new differentiator to work into value messaging conversations. Or maybe a large number of your salespeople are failing to embrace all the value selling skills you have tried to impact, and your sales leaders need to re-engage them to polish up deficient skills. These CI tools can help your leaders gauge how much value actually exists in your current value selling approach — and, more importantly, know when and what to adjust.
ENHANCE YOUR VALUE SELLING WITH SEEK TO SERVE™
At the heart of value selling, organizations serve buyers as problem-solvers and trusted advisors. They build long-term relationships that reap long-term win-win rewards, in revenue and beyond. To succeed in this approach, organizations must ultimately embody Seek to Serve, Not to Sell®.
Learn how to deliver maximum value along your buyer’s journey to achieve sustainable revenue performance with this expert guide to value selling.