Drive sales velocity & win rates with underused buyer enablement principles of value-based selling

?? How do you de-risk buying with Proof of Value (POV)?

?? How do you contextualise value as opposed to relying on generic / presumed value being compelling?

Sales is always results focussed, but to get your commission, you need to be customer outcomes-focussed.

It's not about your sales process it is about about buyer enablement.

"Buy For & With, Don't Sell To"

Put your buyer first?? Their interests, not your interests (e.g. end of Q bonus)

Partnering is critical to value mapping and communication

In B2B selling, this means you'd ideally to speak directly with all major stakeholders so that you understand what matters to them specifically.

There are WILL be multiple stakeholders in the decision making unit, all with different, perhaps even competing priorities and success criteria...

The complete buying committee needs to understood and engaged... much like modern selling is a team game, so is buying.

Matt Heinz from recent client pipeline reviews states by having six members of the buying committee actively involved in your opportunity: your win rates double.

Gong 's research shows ghat when you shift from having 1 to 4 contacts per target account that you actively engage with, you get a 546% increase in win rates?

Some benefits and downstream value-created will not might not be relevant to certain buyers, because value is in the eye of the beholder

When selecting value-adds to highlight to a particular person:

1) strongest financial contributor to their job role

2) emotionally relevant to the “day in the life” challenges of that buyer, and so a benefit that speaks to the WIIFM (what's in it for me) monkey brain of that buyer, and so cannot be substantially discounted as a result.

3) less is more when framing value... as when you add additional irrelevant "value" you dilute the true value they perceive, 1-2 powerful areas of value add is more compelling from neuroscience research than 2 powerful and 8 less powerful value-adds, as there is an averaging rather than aggregating effect in human value assessment according to new research from Niro Sivanathan at the London Business School.

4) Speak to that person in their own language: typically people have a bias towards visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and reading/writing channels when learning and communicating, and so you should package the proposition appropriately. BUT my top tip is always spend more time with those who are auditory biased, as they will tend to be the best at mobilising forces within their own company and you will typically get more feedback and insight from these people.

Here's an equation you can apply to frame your value and increase buying ease for each member of the decision making unit

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Immerse customers in value dialogue through live collaboration across DMU

Don't presume X is valued... be diagnostic and investigate the relevance / resonance of each area of value you can supply.

What matters to one company does not another, and within 1 company value wi

Discovery is not once and done, you will progressively need to peel layers back to unfold more fundamental truths.

What results does your buyer want?

What is their desired state AFTER going through your sales process / change management?

Ensure stated deliverables are aligned to their strategic priorities and you are not focused on solving a problem they don't feel the pain of (pain-killer NOT vitamin... must-have business life saving critical surgery NOT nice to have cosmetic surgery)

Quantify outcomes you'll deliver

Using specific customer data in an ROI calculator.

Sense-check your calc with your champions, as it must be relevant / believable.

BUT then reframe ROI as cost of inaction.

COI > psychologically motivating / inertia overcoming.

COI is the flipside of ROI, what is forfeited by inaction daily.

Value is often found in the contrast between COI and ROI.

If COI grows costlier, and ROI increases, there’s more value... push and pull framing / holistic view of value.

ROI = a "maybe" far off in future & buyers often discount the gain for believability.

COI = a "certain" amount customers are already losing. Immediacy of pain / loss demands > front of mind attention

Co-create their story

Quantifying makes it rational, telling stories makes it memorable.

Desired future state stories and obstacle overcoming stories from similar clients are what may get some of your decision-making stakeholders over the their decision-making reluctance

> visibility on the step by step route to a better tomorrow... making it real and relevant & enables co-creation of mutually agreed action plans (MAPs) that gets them to where they want to be with greater certainty & speed

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- Does the client actually believe they will get the outcomes you've described? Do they actually trust what you have told them and believe their organisation is capable of change?

- Really map out what support they need to get from where they are to where they want to be

- Tell the story of similar companies you have taken on the journey

- Set the foundation for tracking value delivered after the sale and how you will iterate improvement

7/10 corporate?transformation efforts fall short?of expectations - McKinsey

So you must mitigate for the fact in that every stakeholder will be thinking

What if I try to change and it doesn't work?

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- Time between contract sign-off getting their desired outcome

- Focus on onboarding and momentum post-contract sign off

- Manage expectations for meaningful micro milestones

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- What do they have to start / stop doing to achieve the outcome? How is what you propose aligned to their current thinking/ consistent with current direction / actions, and how far along the journey are they already without realising it.

- They can't do it all so you need to ensure what is required is manageable & more important than what it displaces... aligned to their priorities & time / resource limitations

Increase 1) & Reduce 2)... simple right?

Well not quite:

Build Momentum for Change to Overcome Inertia

Focus

> on "why your buyers need to change" - to overcome the Status Quo bias / FOMU resistance to change

< on "why they should choose you"

The Challenge is Change... Why change & Why Now?

The most differentiating thing you can do is focus on helping navigate and affect change

- You have to help your prospect overcome inertia / FOMU

Their customer journey / your sales cycles accelerate when they see value & so can commit to taking action.

"More no-decision losses are because we didn’t dial down the FOMU, not because we didn’t dial up the FOMO"

"Fear of Messing Up (FOMU) accounts for 56% of customer inaction"

If you haven't read the JOLT Effect by?Matt Dixon?and?Ted McKenna????- here is my summary?https://lnkd.in/dFT-dEXQ

TOP TIP

Channel-Market-Fit matters in customer value mapping and communication

In consensus-building: human connections matter (=) real conversations matter

Pick up the phone!

"Based on the evidence it might be more impactful than anything automation or AI can provide"

Don't hide behind email or Linkedin when trying to understand a client and communicate value in context.

Value-selling REQUIRES a client-centric sales communication approach to have the high-quality value-based client conversations that matter.

F2F is great, but it does not scale, and when coordinating complex deals, F2F is ineffective and inefficient.

P.S.

Many sales reps failed to hit their Q2 target BECAUSE their pipeline was not fat enough to compensate for elongating sales cycles & >30% lower win rates YoY...

No amount of value selling could have squeeze out any more revenue from their existing pipeline... it is much like the madness of relying on retention / NRR for revenue growth today.

But that's another story!?https://lnkd.in/dK6Gk_2G

#salesleadership?#businessdevelopment?#salesmanagement?#salesenablement