Imagine being a tennis coach and one day, you tell your team you want them to start playing golf. You hand out brand new, top-of-the-line golf clubs, and send them back out to the tennis court to play golf. What do you think will happen?
Delivering the right content to the right audience, and at the right time, is critical to B2B sales success. The impact of unused content not only includes the cost of wasted effort but unrealized sales revenue as well.
Although we have many industrial clients, the adoption of value-based selling still lags far behind other industries such as software, supply chain, telecommunications, and computer and networking hardware. I recently pondered why this might be the case.
Everyone in the software world who hasn’t been living under a rock is (or should be) gearing up for May 25, 2018. That’s when the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) reshapes how organizations around the world approach data privacy with citizens in European Union countries.
Data breaches are among the greatest threats to the value of an organization’s brand, especially when they expose customer and prospect data. This inevitably creates a negative public perception and damages an organization’s reputation. These increasingly common occurrences have affected industries from healthcare and public utilities to retail establishments, restaurants, and digital service providers.
Value selling tools are an essential part of the B2B sales process. When built properly and used consistently, they can strengthen your sales message, improve the credibility of your sales reps, and by extension, your organization. Additionally, they can help close more sales in less time. Some consultants dispute their potential because homegrown and generic tools typically struggle to meet expectations.
Ah, the good, old days; the days when you could approach a prospect with a list of all the great features your solution had. Maybe you added a little about the benefit of each feature.
The economy was good and had been good for a while; it wasn’t hard to get a signature on a purchase contract without having to do anything more than make it sound like it saved effort or increased throughput.
Suddenly, the economy went south for an extended stay and businesses became frugal. It wasn’t enough to show how fast an employee could perform a process with your solution; you had to find a way to convince your prospect that your solution would be worth the amount you were charging.
I’ve previously written about when and why you need a cost-justified business case to close deals. As a quick primer, the more your solution disrupts your customer’s business and as the size of the investment grows, the more likely you’ll need a business case.
Large corporations have the advantage of large budgets and the ability to staff sales and marketing roles in-house. They have employees to fulfill positions like:
- Front Line Sales Representative
- Product or Solution Expert
- Value Engineer or Value Consultant
How frequently do you use the term “ROI” in front of customers and potential buyers?
I frequently hear sales and marketing professionals talk about “ROI” inaccurately. In a casual conversation, people might still give you the benefit of the doubt and have faith that you know your stuff. However, if you’re making a formal presentation or having a serious conversation with a prospect who’s well versed in financial terminology, any misuse of the term could obviously leave a disastrous impression about you and your company.
Recently Gerhard Gschwandtner, founder and CEO of Selling Power, gave a presentation for an audience of Ohio-based sales leaders in the technology industry. Here are some of the key facts from his presentation that struck me as particularly interesting.
