- March 2, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Categories: Analogies, Politics and Sales, Understanding the Sales Force
If you have watched or listened the current US Presidential Election, debates, interviews, or pep rallies, you might have noticed some interesting forms of selling taking place.
Claims over what the various candidates would do relative to taxes, healthcare and college are the political equivalent to talking about price. When they say they will lower taxes it is very similar to when salespeople say they will have lower prices. When they claim that healthcare or college will be free it is like salespeople who say that their product or service includes all of the desired bells and whistles. If those claims resonate, you might get excited, raise your expectations and then…
While a few companies in each industry battle it out to win the silly war of having the lowest price, it’s important to note that only one company can actually have the lowest price and always having the lowest price is not sustainable unless their volume reaches Amazonian proportions. The remaining companies in each segment must rise above the noise of price and concentrate on selling value – something that most of them fail to accomplish. It’s not that they aren’t trying as much as it’s that they aren’t really doing it.
A sales conversation that even suggests any of the following things will cause severe damage to your chances of selling value:
- We will be competitive
- We can save you some money
- We will send you a quote or a proposal
- We will be within your budget
- Let’s schedule a demo
Suggesting that you will be competitive when you will ultimately be higher sets an expectation that you cannot meet.
Saying that you can save their company money when the competitor will save them more money challenges your integrity and credibility.
Offering to accept their request for a quote or proposal quickly turns your effort into a transactional sale that cannot coexist with selling value.
Assuring them that you will be within their budget, while true, does not address the issue of you having a higher price and will disappoint your prospects.
Rushing to schedule a demo, like accepting the request for a quote, turns your effort into a transactional sale.
Price simply cannot coexist in a conversation about value. You will even get in trouble if you talk about value as a means of differentiation because the low-price leaders also use the word value to suggest that their value lies in their low prices!
Value is not something you articulate. You would be better off saying up front that your prices will be higher than you would if you tried to articulate your value to the prospect.
No, value is actually observed, not articulated. Value is something your prospects see in you and get from you. Value is a derivative of a true consultative approach, with its foundation built around a growing relationship, a real conversation, consisting of great thought-provoking questions about them, their challenges, how those challenges affect them, the resulting consequences, and how that makes them feel.
The biggest problem with all of that? Most salespeople can’t have that kind of dialog. It’s not that they can’t learn to because everyone can learn it. It’s that most salespeople are very uncomfortable with it because it takes them 180 degrees away from what they are comfortable with – talking about their company, capabilities, value proposition, products, applications, services, features, benefits and pricing.
Read this aloud 8 times:
Comfort is not a prerequisite for success.
Doing what feels comfortable does not lead to great results.
Doing that which achieves great results is a requirement in modern selling.
You must change in order to succeed at selling your true value.
How many salespeople are able to sell value this way? The group is shrinking! Read this article to learn how few salespeople have this ability and what this means for everyone else.
If you are a sales leader and you want to learn if your sales organization can become value sellers, consider a sales force evaluation.
If you are a sales leaders and you want to hire salespeople who have the ability to sell value, consider using OMG’s accurate and predictive sales candidate assessments!
