In today’s marketplace, success no longer relies on the ability of sales people to communicate the value of their products and services, but crucially on their ability to create value for their customers.
Indeed, a good sales process is all about creating value for the customer.
But this is where conventional sales processes fall short. Conventional sales processes usually start off with prospecting and cold calling.
Typical objectives for prospecting and cold calling include “generate X leads per week” or “make Y cold calls each day”. However, these objectives fail to create customer value. Everything in the pipeline is geared towards the interests of the selling organisation, rather than those of the buying organisation. We describe such conventional sales processes as Selling from the Right®.
Worryingly, our experience shows that most sales organisations still adhere to conventional sales processes (Selling from the Right®) which are flawed by their inability to create customer value.
In today’s world of B2B sales, just like traditional sales techniques, conventional sales processes do not work. Buying organisations are looking for a consultative approach to selling and a sales process which is designed to allow the sales person to create customer value. We call this Selling from the Left®, where the customer’s value map is represented by the first three stages of the sales process and the selling organisation’s value proposition is represented by the last two stages.
Most selling organisations therefore need to make critical changes to their sales process. They need to replace the initial stages of the sales process and their objectives with those which identify where the greatest potential for value creation lies. Rather than ‘prospecting’ and ‘cold calling’, the initial stages of the sales process should focus on ‘segmentation’, ‘targeting’ and ‘value creation’.
Segmentation – The sales person should target specific industries, segments or types of customer where it is believed that the selling organisation’s products and services will add the most value. Here the sales person (or selling organisation) should produce a clear value proposition which outlines how they will create value for each targeted segment in relation to the ongoing events and trends which affect the segment’s performance. The sales person should take note of the needs and desires which arise from these trends and formulate ways in they can create value for their customers based on those needs and desires.
Targeting – The next stage involves the sales person selecting potential and existing customers within the appropriate segment who are most likely to benefit from the value proposition mentioned in the previous stage. To target the right customer, sales people need to research their customers in detail. This will enable them to estimate the value which can be created and captured for each potential and existing customer.
Value Creation – Finally, the sales person must transform the original value proposition into a unique value proposition which is specifically tailored for each customer. The sales person should identify the key decision makers within each potential buying organisation. They should then strive to meet with or call these key decision makers to ensure that value can be created and to get a measure of exactly how much value can be created for each customer.
By reshaping the conventional sales process to a sales process that is more focused on value creation for the client, selling organisations will be able to engineer a sales process which is far more efficient and effective.
For more information on consultative selling and Selling from the Left® click here.
Written by: Steve Eungblut, Managing Director of Sterling Chase
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