The DriveSales™ | 7 Key principles of value-based selling to win and close more deals!
It is quite evident in the current scenario that the level of competitiveness in the sales market has soared dramatically and there is no stopping now. Hence, sales reps are more enthusiastic and attentive towards the prospects to increase their sales quota.
However, is the goal only to achieve more and more sales? As a sales rep, are you also focussing on listening to your client’s needs and demands and working on making meaningful relationships with your client? Well, the answer to the above questions determines the nature and progress of your sales journey in the present market scenario.
If your answer is yes, congratulations!! You are on the right track. However, if it is a no, you need to rethink your sales strategy. Your prospects are likely to choose to work with the business that can formulate, integrate, and develop the same business interests. They are looking for a long-term commitment and not a loose hanging thread that can slip off at any moment.
Thus, it has become absolutely imperative for sales reps to shift their strategy to a more inclusive and value-based approach.
Read on to get the actual insights and tips to win more deals through value-based selling.
Value-based selling:
Simply put, value-based selling is a customer-centric approach. It focuses on the benefit of the client throughout the entire duration of the sales process. The entire focus of the sales rep is to provide value to the prospect’s business through their solutions, products, or services. Broadly, it is a consultative approach to sales.
The aim of this strategy is to always put the needs and demands of the client first and to guide and direct them through the sales process in order to help them to make a well-strategized and well-informed decision.
Key principals of value-based selling
1) Always do your homework — Always remember that the end goal of value-based selling is to prioritize the needs of your customer before your own. And to do that, you need to understand the nature of your client’s business, market, and strategy. Hence, before jumping directly into the sales conversation, you need to do your homework in order to get positive results.
Now, what does the homework entail? The answer is very simple — thorough research. While working on your research, try to figure out the client’s company needs and requirements, market and industry, their past experiences, and future plans. Look for the fault and pain points that you can rectify using your products, services, or solutions.
The broad themes that you can search across are:
· Current and past market trends
· Company’s industry standing
· Common contacts
· Social media engagement level
· Company’s authentic digital presence
· Market competitors
2) Don’t deep dive too early with sales pitches — As a sales rep, you need to have the virtue of patience. Don’t give in to the temptation to dive into the sales pitch as early as possible. Rather, resist impatience and analyze intelligently.
Though you have learned a lot about the client and his business during your research phase, you need to adopt a balanced approach and wait for the one-on-one interaction with the client itself to understand the broader expectations from you.
Before bombarding your client with your estimated knowledge-based sales pitch, give time to your client to explain his wants, requirements, and future goals. This will help build the client’s trust in your work and will also impact the credibility and reliability of your business.
3) Communication is the key to successful deals — Understand that your client is looking for an appropriate solution for his business problem. If that wouldn’t have been the case, your client wouldn’t have sought out your services. Thus, in order to have a successful deal, you need to figure out how to solve your prospect’s problem.
Therefore, as a responsible salesperson, you need to find out various ways through which your solution, product, or service can prove to be beneficial for your client’s business problem. While doing this exercise, do remember that your arguments must be simple and easy-to-understand and also relevant to your customer.
The prospect is likely to lose interest if he doesn’t understand the benefits he’ll be getting out of the deal with your company or the ways through which your solution can eliminate his problems.
4) Incorporate teaching and educating rather than just selling — It is a known fact that people respond better when they themselves are aware of the problem and its implications and the way to go about the solution. Hence, focus on teaching and educating your clients rather than just trying to sell.
When you adopt this strategy, you become an indispensible resource for your prospect and they become dependent on you for information and knowledge. Eventually, you become a go-to source of information for your customer and this in return, helps in building trust and respect on either side.
Through this approach, you tend to build a long-term work relationship with your client and are more likely to have a successful deal.
5) Guide your prospect — As discussed earlier, when you adopt a value-based approach for your selling business, you turn into a consultant for your client dealings. Thus, it is your duty to guide your prospect through the entire sales process and help him make well-informed decisions that bear fruitful results for his business.
Work on sharing fresh ideas and approaches with your client and never hesitate to recommend some constructive changes that you know will boost your client’s business and will in return, increase his company’s market value.
6) Personalized approach is the way to go — Make sure that the conversation and the solutions for your client are personalized and specific to his business. This reflects that you are genuinely interested in helping your prospect and he can rely on you to help his business boom.
A few tips for this approach could be:
· Have a free-flowing and open-ended conversation
· Don’t hesitate to ask relevant questions
· Small talk can be really helpful to approach a particular topic
· Try to have simple explanations for your client
· Do recommend relevant suggestions and changes
7) Value addition in every session — Lastly, ensure that you are adding value to your prospect’s business in one way or the other every time you interact with him. This will make your business credible and will build the trust of your client in your business capabilities.
A simple way to achieve this is to plan the session timeline in such a way that there is plenty of time to answer your client’s doubts. Another way could be to share relevant content and documents/articles that could help your customer increase his knowledge about your solutions.
Now, as an effective SALESPERSON! We can do three things from here.
1. Not ignoring the opportunity and blaming the situation for revenue loss.
2. Taking important notes and going back to revisit your sales strategy with the growth mindset.
3. Reaching out to The DriveSales™ if you need any specialized help for sales.
To conclude, what you choose to think also provides some idea of your development as a consultative salesperson. It is something like Thomas Edison quotes “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
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