Assertions to win the Sales Arguments

Never argue, repeat your assertion. - Robert Owen?

• Assertion 1: you win a competitive deal because you create a preference to buy from you instead of any of your competitors.
• Assertion 2:?The way you create that preference is by differentiating yourself and the way you deliver your outcomes from the rest of the field.
• Assertion 3:?You create meaningful differentiation when you create value greater than your competition.
• Assertion 4:?You create value by providing your prospective an experience and a conversation they find to be the most valuable to them as they consider change.

Accepting these assertions as true means recognizing that you lose deals because your client did not to prefer to buy from you because you didn't differentiate yourself by creating greater value during your conversations.

Setting the Table

We need not imagine a table because when we sit down with a prospective client we are literally sitting at a table. Your prospective client brings a lot to the table, including their openness to exploring change, their desire to improve their outcomes, and the possibility of obtaining help from a person and a company that can improve their outcomes.

Your prospective client also brings to the table their false assumptions and misconceptions, their past mistakes, a long list of concerns about making a change, including the hidden commitments they have to their position within their company, their fear of failing, how others will perceive them and their decisions.

Even though change is necessary to improving their outcomes, part of any prospect's calculation is a risk assessment, balancing their openness and their need to change with the risks that come with any significant change.

Bringing Too Little to the Table

Some salespeople bring too little to the table, decreasing the client's openness and their willingness to explore change and increasing their concerns about making a significant change and even greater concern about buying from the salesperson. The legacy approach that relies on a conversation about their company, their clients, and their products and services is inadequate, even if it was once effective.

• Assertion 5:?Decision-makers make decisions. Because this is true, decision-makers need help deciding for their company and their future results.
• Assertion 6:?Your prospective client doesn't find value in a conversation designed to create certainty that your company is the right choice early in the sales conversation, as it does not contribute anything to their decision-making.
• Assertion 7:?Asking your client to tell you about their problems causes clients to be concerned about whether you are the right person to help them improve their results. It creates too little value, as your contact knows their problem.
• Assertion 8:?When a prospective client doesn't agree to have another meeting with you, it is because you didn't bring enough to the table, meaning they need find you or your conversation to be valuable enough to continue conversation.

How to Bring Enough to the Table

It's critical that you bring enough to the table that your request for a second meeting is all but certain to be accepted, and perhaps even something that creates anticipation.

• Assertion 9:?The person who can best explain the client's current state, seeing both the external forces and the internal conflicts has created a level of value greater than their competitors. The person who can make sense of uncertainty and complexity brings much to the table. The person that provides this understanding provides the client with a clear view of their real challenges.
• Assertion 10:?The person who can effectively replace the client's false assumptions and misconceptions creates value that enables the client to better understand how to make a good decision, and almost certainly who to buy from. Providing your client with a new, higher resolution lens allows them to discover something about themselves.
• Assertion 11:?The person who creates the greatest value explains how to determine what factors the client needs to consider and how best to weigh their choices. Those who try to differentiate on their product and service lose to salespeople who differentiate on their model.
• Assertion 12:?People buy from people they trust to make a decision they don't trust themselves to make, an idea I stole from Chris Beall.
• Assertion 13:?The commitment to continue the conversation is proof that your client finds your conversation valuable enough to continue when compared to your competition.
• Assertion 14:?From this point forward, assume that one or two of your competitors know how to bring more to the table than the rest of the field.

Breaking the Legacy

Eat Their Lunch begins with the idea that you are the value proposition, making you responsible for creating the greatest value for your client within the sales conversation. This was true in 2018, and it's only become more important.

The legacy approach to sales is still being practiced by the largest majority of B2B salespeople. For all of the talk about B2B Buyers and what they profess to need, the largest number of B2B buyers still use legacy buying approaches.

• Assertion 15:?If you want your client to change how they buy, you have to provide them with an experience that cause them to do something different. Leadership always requires that the leader goes first, becoming an example.
• Assertion 16: Those who create a preference, differentiate themselves and their model, and create greater value believe they are leading their clients through the sales conversation.
• Assertion 17: The reason so many deals die in a pipeline full of other dead deals is because the legacy approach isn't adequate for the client to move forward.
• Assertion 18:?the many salespeople who don't reach their quota results from an approach that doesn't allow them to create or win enough deals to hit their targets.