Everyone Has Company Values... So Why Haven’t You Got Sales Values?

When I was Sales Director for the UK at Reward Gateway we went a step further than having company values and created Sales Values. Our sales values were the absolute bedrock of why people bought our service.  Our sales values were not product features or USPS, they were 5 sentences we could look at and say ‘we need to convince our prospect of these 5 things, only then would we convert prospects to customers. We found 5 benefits to having sales values:

1. When we hooked our prospect on each one, we knew we had a really hot opportunity
2. We could identify with each sales rep what the prospect wasn’t convinced of and identify where the weakness was in the opportunity
3. It created consistency amongst the team, no more ‘gut feeling’ it shaped our conversations with the reps so we were all talking the same language
4. Our values made sure we used the right marketing material to help convince our prospect of the value they were least convinced of
5. They kept us focused, not just in sales, but across all departments, staying true to why people buy impacts decisions even further out than your next deal

So you’re probably wondering how to formulate your own company’s Sales Values and what they should look like. We developed ours through interviewing new client wins and client losses. Here’s a peek at our Sales Values; they are unique to your company and customer:

“It saves you more money.”

So does your product do X better than anyone else? If it was delivering boxes, do you deliver boxes faster than anyone else? Does your prospect believe that you’re going to do that faster than anyone else?

“It solves my team's challenges…My staff will love me.”

They have to believe that your product or service, is the solution to their problem, is going to work. That’s a simple one. Whether you’re doing X or Y do they really believe that it’s going to work for them based on what their buying reason is? If so, will whoever is impacted by your product or service, love the decision maker who selected it?

“It provides a fantastic value…”

Do they feel like they’re getting more value than what they paid for? So this is something that I always work towards. If they feel like they’re getting 2 to 3 times what your price is, you’ve got a much better chance of winning. For example, if they’re paying $30,000 for your piece of software but they think they’re getting $90,000 or $100,000 worth of service, you’ve got a much better chance of winning it. I call that the 3X rule.

“It’s quick and easy to implement. My boss will love me.”

Will it make your contact or the decision maker look good? Will it make their boss love them? Everyone has a boss, everyone has someone to impress. It doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO, you’ve got to impress the investors. You’ve got to impress whoever.

“No substitute will work. This is the one we must have.”

You have to make them believe by the very end of all of this that your solution is the only solution that can solve their problem or help them with the problem they’re trying to solve.

We did whatever necessary to make sure that everyone knew them. So in the hustle and bustle of the sales process how do you consistently get your sales team to think about them? We had them on the wall, on cubes on people's desks, on screen savers, we ran random competitions shouting across the office “Phil, what's sales value number 3?” But most importantly they were used in our pipeline reviews.

Create your sales values and ingrain them into your day-to-day processes, meetings, training and pipeline reviews. By doing this, your sales team will know them inside out and believe in them. Before you know it they will become part of your sales language and ensure you are converting more and more prospects to customers.

I hope this helps