A Simple Tool That’s Improving The Performance Of B2B Sales Teams

Here’s a quick exercise for sales leaders to try.

Email your team and ask them in 75 words or less to communicate the value proposition of your company.

How confident are you that each one of your team members will have the same, or even similar pitches? Do you think this even matters?

Before you send this email, consider the implications of getting 10 completely different replies or the same reply from 10 different people.

The reason why this exercise is interesting is not to demonise those who fail to articulate your value proposition effectively.  The purpose of this exercise is simply to illustrate that there is a wide spectrum of understanding of the value proposition of you company.

And that’s normal… but you are losing sales because of it.

The reason is simple.  Buying is becoming more complicated than ever.  On average there are 6.8 people involved in the decision making process with a staggering 65% of customers saying they spent as much time as they’d expected to need for the entire purchase just getting ready to speak with a sales rep.

So it also shouldn’t come as a surprise that, 60% of the the typical purchasing decision has been made before the customer even speaks to the rep.

On the one hand, this is great news.  If 60% of the decision has been made and the customer is on the phone to you, exciting times.

However, it also means that whomever you are speaking to has another 5.8 people to convince. And this is so often where the sale breaks down.

Why?  Because generally speaking the majority of people in the decision making process aren’t interested in a relationship with the supplier and moreover, aren’t subject matter experts in the solution being offered and therefore aren’t woo’d by solution sales.  They are interested in the value to them (or the potential threat this poses), which is extremely different depending on their job title.

Effectively, to them all you are offering is a scary change to BAU that they don’t understand the implications of.

In most cases, your rep is relying on the sales skills of their contact to convince the remaining participants in the decision making process that your solution is superior.  This is where most sales processes breakdown.

More and more, forward thinking enterprises are looking to address this issue head-on, and one way to do that is via conversational sales presentations.

A very interesting example of the difference this can make can be found here.  Whilst compelling, this is hardly unique in terms of difference such a presentation makes.  Here at PDCo, we see first hand on a weekly basis the power of a well crafted sales presentation that incorporates the science of persuasion.  

With the changing landscape of sales, sales leaders need to understand that solution selling to the key decision influencers is not enough.  Sales activities now need to focus on all participants of the decision making process and to do so, you need to be able to compellingly address their motives.

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