How to Convey Value on a Sales Call

Does Your Sales Team Know How to Convey Value on a Sales Call?
We know from solution selling training participants that conveying the value of a product or service is not always as straightforward as it should be to many sales reps. Top solution sellers know that to convey value on a sales call you must:

• Thoughtfully identify what matters most to your buyer
• Directly link your offerings to their priorities
• Clearly articulate why you and your solution will help them to be successful better, faster, or cheaper than the alternatives

Data from our sales leadership simulation assessment says that conveying value is easier said than done and represents a missed opportunity for sellers.

What The Research Says About How to Convey Value on a Sales Call
Our microlearning experts point to sales research by BTS that found that different types of buyers want to have different types of sales conversations. That means that to convey value on a sales call, sellers must align their approach to how their buyer wants to buy.

The 3 Types of Buyers
The research found that buyers (and the projects that they are working on) tend to fall into one of three categories:

• Product-focused
  They’re looking for a specific product.
  
• Solution-focused
  They’re looking to solve a specific problem.
  
• Accelerator-focused
  They’re looking to improve specific business results.

Sellers who do not align with how the buyer is buying have much lower chances of winning the deal and much higher chances of wasting everyone’s time. The research found that the most common sales mistake was to have a product-focus to early and too often in the sales process. Why, because the majority of buyers, especially executive buyers, consider themselves to be accelerator- and solution-focused.

What to Do to Convey Customer-Centric Value Sales Calls
Savvy sales managers know that sellers should:

1. Have buyers rank their goals, problems, and needs in order of priority to help assess if they are a product, solution, or accelerator buyer.
   
2. Match their sales approach to their buyer type.
   
3. Convey value in a way that resonates with the buyer’s priorities.

The Bottom Line
Too many salespeople jump to discussing products, features, and benefits too quickly to try to close the deal. Since the majority of buyers consider themselves to be solution- or accelerator-buyers, sellers are sabotaging their own success. Can your sales force align their sales approach to their buyers’ needs?

To learn more about how to convey value on a sales call, download The 30 Most Effective Sales Questions to Uncover Customer Value