In the world of B2B sales, it’s rare to uncover a new opportunity at a trade show and then actually close the deal at the same show. In reality, all the hours and dollars invested in the show won’t pay off unless opportunities that otherwise would not be discovered are either closed at the show or more likely, closed with diligent follow-up after the show. This makes it especially important to have a winning approach to post-show follow up.
My guest appearance on The Sales Conversation Podcast explored How to Sell Complex Solutions to Multiple Buyers using value selling. I shared practical strategies and tactics to advance your value selling approach with host, Bruce Scheer, founder of Sales Conversation, and together, we took a meaningful look at how to improve sales performance with value selling.
Promotional items given away at trade shows are often discarded by attendees before they even get home. Instead of handing out just another promotional item, consider how you can you can really give your prospect something of value to take back to the office that they won’t even have to carry.
I was recently interviewed by my longtime friend and colleague, Bruce Scheer, CEO of SalesConversation.com. It was great fun being part of Bruce’s podcast series, which covers a broad range of topics that can help sellers be more successful. Before I summarize what we discussed, consider subscribing to The Sales Conversation Podcast on iTunes and listening to the entire podcast on Bruce’s website.
Exhibiting at a trade show is a big investment and the only authentic way to significantly improve your ROI is to close more deals.
Grant Thornton’s 2018 CFO Insights on New Technologies research study reveals that “CFOs are playing an increasingly important role in influencing decisions related to technology.” At the same time the study found that “only 12% of executives strongly agree that they have an effective system of measuring financial key performance indicators associated with the implementation of technology.“
One of the biggest challenges in sales is getting buyers’ attention. And even when you do get a phone call set up, too often buyers on the other end of the line are clearly multi-tasking and not paying full attention. The panacea is to provide buyers with meaningful insights. Follow the five steps below to create deeper buyer engagement, which will lead you from initial contact to sealing the deal on renewals and future sales.
The best way to increase your average selling price (and earn more commission) is to use a value selling methodology. Value selling is a proven approach to avoid or minimize price discounting and increase upselling and cross-selling, which all contribute to a higher selling price.
If you are marketing and selling a complex B2B solution, it is critical to differentiate your offering’s value proposition for each market segment. Markets are often segmented using geographic attributes (e.g., continent, country, region, state and dispersion) and / or business attributes (e.g., size, industry, product mix and legal structure). That said, the key factor in your segmentation analysis is how your customers use your solution.
Our recent blog post, "How to Boost Sales Results with Business Value Conversations" includes some telling statistics about achieving sales success by presenting and discussing your solution’s value proposition with your customers. More importantly though, how do you define the value your organization can expect to receive from adopting a value selling approach?
