Sellers have been told for years to “sell higher in the organization.” This is especially true for complex sales, which require the approval of the CFO or another senior-level financial leader. Unfortunately, financial approval remains elusive, partly because sellers are often unprepared.
In B2B buying decisions and consumer purchases, humans do not always make optimal or even rational economic decisions, as predicted by Rational Choice Theory. If this is true, why do we continue to preach value-based selling? The fascinating and evolving study of Behavioral Economics may hold the answers.
Why would a company abandon its existing value selling tools after investing in their development? The answer is often simple: the tools are too complex and the sales team won’t use them. To better understand how to deploy more effective value selling tools, it is first important to understand how and why they are too complex.