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Some news stories just don't go away. Today those stories include Ferguson, Bill Cosby, ISIS and The NFL's Domestic Abuse Problem. There is also Obamacare, Immigration and Ebola. They remain in the news more because the media continues to milk these stories then readers demand to know more.
When we look at the sales stories of the recent past, the topics that sales experts continue writing about are Social Selling, Inbound Marketing, LinkedIn, Twitter, CRM and Lead Nurturing. They remain in the news more because the writers are attempting to sell their own services that happen to support those topics more than readers demanding to read more about it. There's nothing wrong with these topics of course, but sales experts should be addressing topics more closely aligned with helping sellers sell, instead of so much space being devoted to what takes place at the top and above the top of the sales funnel.
So if not those topics, then what should we all be writing about - all the time - that would be a real difference maker for salespeople?
I believe that it's the importance of and ability to sell value. Why, you ask?
Selling value is the one thing that all salespeople, operating without benefit of the lowest price, absolutely, positively, must be able to do well in order to consistently earn the business.
Despite the need to effectively sell value, it happens to be one of things that salespeople do very poorly. The importance of selling value isn't going away, but sales experts are not spending enough time talking about it, writing about it, explaining it, or providing training on it. The most critical aspect of this topic is understanding the many factors that support a salesperson's ability to sell value. Selling value isn't a specific thing that one says or does, as much as it's an outcome of several other things. According to Objective Management Group's (OMG) statistics (close to one million salespeople assessed), of the 6 most important factors required to sell value, most salespeople have, on average, only 2 of them as strengths or skills.
This is such an important topic that last week I hosted a broadcast on Selling Value in Modern Times. If you would like to watch it, run time is 46 minutes.
According to a Google search on my blog, I've written about or mentioned selling value, in some way, shape or form, 766 times in the past 10 years. Here are 10 of my favorite articles on selling value and when you extract the major points from each, it provides a very nice collection of guidelines for selling value:
Is the Sales Force Getting Dressed Up or are Real Changes Taking Place?
Closing and Negotiating Challenges - Symptoms of Another Selling Problem
Sales 102 - The Pitch Deck, the Price Reduction and the Data
This Simple Strategy Will Sell Your ROI and Value Proposition Every Time
Why This is Still a Great Selling Sales Book After 10 Years
Price Quotes and the Inability of Salespeople to Sell Value
As I mentioned above, selling value does not stand on its own. You should now understand that from the value selling broadcast and the articles above, there are several other factors that contribute to selling value. Unless salespeople are able to effectively integrate all of the necessary factors (Sales DNA, sales process, strategy and tactics), then the end result will always be salespeople that are only able to talk about value, instead of actually becoming the value.
I'll be hosting a webinar on December 10 at 11 AM Eastern Time. We'll be discussing the 5 Hidden Factors that Determine the Fate of Every Sales Force. Selling Value is certainly one of those factors! It will run for about 45 minutes. If you would like to attend you can register here.
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