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.
A well-designed value calculator gives buyers an easy way to analyze your solution’s impact on their bottom line and get meaningful answers to their questions. One of the biggest challenges is ensuring that the results are defensible and believable enough for users to engage with your sales team.
The concept of the buyer’s journey seems to have lost some of its appeal. Some B2B pundits now contend that the journey is a convoluted route with many twists, turns and dead-ends instead of a neat, linear process. How can sellers nurture sales if they’re not sure where buyers are in their process?
When the going gets tough, the tough get going... working harder and focused on meeting their challenges. The tough ones in our business are those who can convince cautious customers to buy in an exceptionally challenging economic environment.
Has your organization built its marketing and sales programs around selling your product? Well, here’s a news flash. B2B customers don’t buy features and functions; they buy solutions to their problems. So not only should you be selling your solution, you should also be “selling money.”
I am always happy to provide value-selling training, but I hesitate when the organization hasn’t already invested in value selling tools or integrated value selling into its overall sales process. Why? Because in my experience, three critical components must be present to ensure a successful value-selling initiative: people, process, and technology.
I’ve heard it all when it comes to pricing strategies. Clients say they use a premium pricing strategy, or penetration pricing, or (pick your own) pricing strategy. But really... what is the one and only goal of pricing when you want to make a profit?
To effectively sell based on value, you need to first grasp the value your offering creates. That is where Grassroots Strategy comes in. Jeff Bennett and I recently published Grassroots Strategy: Cultivating B2B Growth from the Ground Up to share what we’ve learned about building marketing strategies around customer needs and proper pricing strategies.
If you are like the vast majority of businesses, you strive to shorten your sales-cycle and accelerate closing the deal. On the other hand, some businesses are blessed with such a smooth sales process that they need to slow things down.
