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.
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.
The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus is credited with saying, “There is nothing permanent except change.” This adage is certainly true centuries later, especially with regard to technology and its impact on today’s sales and marketing organizations.
I’ve been reading the now-classic business book, “The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation" by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson. As I continue to read, it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that value selling can help every sales rep perform like a Challenger by helping them adopt the complementary attributes that make up the profile of this likely sales leader.
Some deals are simple, like selling a solitary product to a single buyer. Other deals can be more involved with offerings that include multiple products, phased timelines, and deployments for multiple departments, locations, or processes across an enterprise.
ROI Selling recently spoke with Mike Serulneck, an accomplished Value Engineer who has successfully developed and managed Business Value Engineering and sales proposal teams at Tier 1 technology companies. During his conversation with ROI Selling’s David Svigel and Patty Baumgardner, Mike shared his experience using value selling methodologies to sell technology solutions, as well as his perspective on how value selling has changed over the last decade.
Value selling? Aristotle? The link between one of the greatest thinkers of the Western world and value-based sales processes is stronger than you would think!
B2B marketing advice can be found everywhere, but some of it is outdated and misguided when it comes to achieving its most important goal -- closing the sale. Today’s B2B marketing approach requires attention to three critical certainties in order to improve sales revenue.
Your ability to help B2B buyers understand the value you provide can make or break the sale. In some cases, as with our client IQS, that means communicating the ways in which the prospect or customer is losing money so that the buyer understands the potential of the solution.
Purpose-built value selling tools are designed to simplify sales enablement and build trust between your organization and its prospects and customers. The most valuable tools can provide strategic insights into how your customers do business, and help them understand the risk and cost of continuing “business as usual.” Value selling tools can also accelerate the sales process and help you close more business with greater confidence. So why don’t more organizations use them?
