Do your sales-staff really know what they are selling?

If you instinctively answered “yes” to this, take a moment to consider. Particularly, take a moment if your sales-staff tell you that they are constantly facing price competition and that they need to discount their prices to be successful.

Can your sellers list the component parts of your value proposition? When they do this, do they talk in terms of product features, or in terms of benefits that will be recognised as so, from the perspective of their customers.

Can they talk the language of your customer groupings? Do they know how your value proposition helps them address their own unique industry issues?

Can your sellers put a financial value, from the perspective of your buyers, on each component part of your offer. How much will each part of your offer save them / how much extra can each part create for them?

Do they know how your competitors’ offer compares with your own. In which areas your offer out performs your competition, and it which areas it does not.

Discussions about value propositions, and the application of them by your customer groupings, should be the stuff of sales meetings so that your sellers can share their knowledge, developed from their practical sales activity. Product designers can also learn how to improve your product or service, from these discussions which feedback technical detail from the interface with customers.

Facilitated workshops to help sales teams understand their value proposition, learning how to communicate them to real live customers, and how to clear buyers objections through unpacking value, will get your sellers to consider their sales game faster than any amount of formal sales training.

From this you can build understandings about how to establish credence, create empathy, discuss value, and propose customer-based solutions. When your sellers are engaging your customers at this level, you’ll find that price slips way down the list of criteria.

Top performing sellers take time to communicate their entire value proposition before they move on to talking about price. With a complex product and service offer, this process allows sellers to demonstrate their industry knowledge, build a climate of collaboration, and takes the discussion away from price and focuses it on value.