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.”
What’s your sales strategy for 2021? The global pandemic has wreaked havoc in every business sector and will likely dominate the economy going into next year. And the upcoming presidential election is sure to add more uncertainty. What better time to build a 2021 sales strategy that focuses on delivering business value?
In pre-pandemic days, sales and marketing efforts focused on enhancing the customer’s total experience (e.g., brand assurance, strategic growth, ESG, responsiveness, and future enablement). But COVID-19 has flipped this paradigm, at least in the short term, as buyers keep retreating to more basic considerations.
Business leaders face perplexing decisions brought on by the pandemic and its effects on the economy. Choices on where to invest resources are complicated. While select economies are reopening, states and countries face increasing daily case counts and a potential resurgence later this year.
In the economic downturn of 2008, Philip Lay, Todd Hewlin, and Geoffrey Moore wrote a thought leadership piece for Harvard Business Review (HBR) entitled, “In a Downturn, Provoke Your Customers.” I give them credit for setting off a chain reaction that we now know as “Selling Insight.”
This guest post from Leslie Ye, Senior Executive Communications Strategist at HubSpot, contends that not every sale is a good sale. There are times when it’s best to hit the brakes before sealing the deal and assess whether this customer is right for your offering and able to implement it for maximum value.
Buyers go through a natural process when deciding to invest in a technology solution. The most successful sales approaches guide customers through that process quickly, confidently, and collaboratively.
The most successful sales reps focus on understanding the customer's business, especially when it comes to solution selling.
These sales reps engage in what some have now dubbed “The Challenger Sale.”
But what exactly is it and how does it align with value selling?
Let’s take a closer look.
Traditional marketing wisdom tells us that building customer relationships begins with the sales process. Every product, company and industry has its own unique journey, and it’s our job as B2B solution providers to establish trust, credibility and value every step of the way.
As a former salesperson and sales manager, I know how much effort it takes to close a complex sale. Although it took extra work and time to create a business case to prove the ROI of investing in my solution (an ERP system), I always felt the process was well worth it.
There are a few reasons I advocate using a business case as part of the sales process, particularly for long and/or complex sales cycles. One reason is obvious: a business case includes ROI calculations that prove to your customer the financial logic of investing in your solution.
