Principles Of Success Resource Center

Creating Predictable and Profitable Sales Growth

Whether you are the business owner, the CEO or the Director of Sales, business development is your business.  Sadly, even the most aggressive and savvy leaders have allowed their business’s high-value solutions to become the victim of commoditization.  I hear your inner voice – “but you don’t understand my industry…”  Therein lies the problem.  You have become convinced that you must sell according to the traditions of your industry.

The traditional sales process assumes the client comprehensively understands his need and the complexity of the existing situation.  Defaulting to this approach results in complete dependence upon the customer’s decision-making process.  In this scenario, sales professionals are forced to focus the majority of their sales efforts on meeting that presumptive need, thereby falling into the “one-size fits all” commodity paradigm.

A slightly evolved professional is practicing the value-based sales approach that evolved in the seventies and early nineteen eighties.  These sales professionals conduct a needs or gap analysis – learning from the client what the client thinks the problem is and then developing a solution to the client’s perceived problem.

In these scenarios, the solution is being based upon the client’s understanding and perception of the problem.  If you’ve been in sales for very long, you know the client rarely has a comprehensive understanding of her “problem.”  By positioning her as the expert, you are simply forced to provide a matching solution at a price that is dictated by the same factors as your competition, forcing your solution into commoditization.

The most successful organization and sales professional understands that to overcome the commodity trap is to successfully:

1.    Diagnose your customer’s situation

2.    Clearly and measurably communicate the absence of value

3.    Quantify the impact of the missing value at every applicable level

4.    Connect the value of the solution to their business objectives and to the customers they serve

With an understanding of your customers’ business drivers, connecting the impact value of your solutions to their objectives positions you as a partner in their ongoing success.  An ongoing partnership in your customers’ success, long after the deal has closed, significantly reduces the chances your product or service and relationship will be outsourced as the clients’ need and the solutions thereto evolve.

The Peak Performance Group, Inc. provides one-to-one engagements and workshops to support the development of the diagnostically driven, value-based consultative sales approach. Learn more about our workshops http://theppginc.com/consultativeselling.php or call us or email us for more information.