Sales Professionals Create An Alignment Of Value... Are You?

change grow growsales larrylevine relationships sales sales professionals salesmanagement sellingfromtheheart value May 24, 2021
"When values, thoughts, feelings, and actions are in alignment, a person becomes focused and character is strengthened."
John C. Maxwell

Stop for a moment, sit back, and now reflect upon this question...

How much value are you creating for your clients and prospects to help grow your sales and their business?

All too often, I hear salespeople, sales management and those in executive management sing praise to the importance of creating value for their clients and prospects. Inside a sea of sales sameness, VALUE; irrefutably becomes one of the single biggest aspects.

However, in order to build value, how many know the true meaning of value? Why is this so important?

"Know thy value, know thy worth"

Merriam-Webster defines value as:

  • The monetary worth of something
  • A fair return or equivalent in goods, services, or money for something exchanged
  • Relative worth, utility, or importance
  • Something (such as a principle or quality) intrinsically valuable or desirable

My question to all of you...

How many know what you're worth?

AVOID SWIMMING IN THE SAME OCEAN

There are way too many of you in sales that act like 'walking, talking brochures', as you simply regurgitate product information. Your clients and prospects aren't buying into your facts and features.

In fact, most aren't even product-oriented in their thinking; what they're focused on is finding a solution to their challenges and solving their problems. This is what creates value for them.

When you pound your chest and rattle off great wizardry about your products, you fail to position yourself and your knowledge as the answer to their pain, frustration, or aspiration.

Instead, all you've done is position yourself as a commodity, swimming in the deep blue sales ocean known as the 'sea of sameness.

Attention sales community...

You've allowed the buyer to base more of their purchasing decision on price, thereby pressuring profit margins as they crush you with the sales sameness hammer.

A true sales professional creates value through the eyes of their clients. With the 20/20 vision, they clearly gain the opportunity to be viewed like none other in the marketplace as if they've almost created a new market segment of one.

They have effectively repositioned themselves from their competition. Price now becomes a less dominating factor within the purchasing decision. I get it, at some point price does become an issue, but if they perceive unique value, the price will never be THE issue.

"Creating value not only transforms sales effectiveness, but it also provides insulation from the price hammer."

CREATE AN ALIGNMENT OF VALUE

Building strong relationships and understanding holistically what value means, lays the foundation for becoming valuable.

Sales professionals create value alignment.

INTERNAL VALUE

A sales professional understands their value. They know value is deeply cemented within the foundation of their business house.

What makes you valuable?

People won’t ever engage in a business conversation nor buy from you if they don’t even understand why they should pay attention to you.

A sales professional understands their value statement is their promise. It's the value they deliver, communicate, and are held accountable for fulfilling. 

Given client expectations and the competitive business landscape, a sales professional consistently reviews their value statement as part of their personal business strategy. They spend time with their clients to see if they're actually meeting and fulfilling the aspects within their value statement with them.

On a daily basis, sales professionals will ask themselves...

  • What do I represent?
  • What is my ideal self?
  • How would I describe myself?
  • What are my values?
  • What are my vision and mission?
"How well do you know your value statement?"

CLIENTS VALUE

A sales professional always looks at things through the eyes of their clients. They develop a true understanding of what they value. They realize all clients value different things; as there's no cookie-cutter model and how to create it for them.

The same can be said for different people within the same organization. A sales professional gains an understanding and builds credible relationships with all of the people making up the buying team. This is to ensure their sales communication is appropriate for each one of them.

"Sales professionals do not cut corners and assume they know their client's value"

By strengthening the relationship, a sales professional is able to get a better sense of the current business situation and where their clients want to be; as this information is used to position their value to address their clients' initiatives, goals, desires, and challenges.

A sales professional will spend as much time as is it takes to gain an understanding of their client's value. They know taking shortcuts and skimming over key details will result in a failure to create and communicate value. 

COMPANY VALUE

Company values are the guiding principles that are most important to a sales professional about the way the company works.

They align their values to the company's to create a value-based go-to-market strategy. Words they align to...

  • Being accountable
  • Making a difference
  • Serving others
  • Doing what is right

When the alignment of values happens, people understand one another, everyone does the right things for the right reasons. Value alignment helps the company as a whole to achieve its core mission, taking care of their clients and employees.

When values are out of alignment, with people working towards different goals, with different intentions, and with different outcomes; this ultimately damages work relationships, productivity, job satisfaction, and creative potential.

"How well do you know your company's mission, vision and value statement?"

In the end, a sales professional marries both values together in harmony and uses this to take care of their clients as well as to grow new opportunities.

ALIGNING VALUE REQUIRES PAYING CLOSE ATTENTION

Done with precision, building value positions sales professionals with a greater chance to grow sales and long-term business relationships.

I encourage you to go back and analyze some of your best client relationships.

Grab a sheet of paper and start asking yourself some of the following questions:

  • Do I know what my client's value?
  • Do they know what I value?
  • Do they know what my company values?

And if you struggle at any level to answer, then I believe uncovering these could be the path to strengthening and insulating your relationships from hostile take-overs.

In order to crush your sales, I encourage you to pay close attention to the strength of your relationships, tolerance for change, your client's current situation and always ask questions.

It's imperative that in today's competitive business landscape, sales professionals must marry their value, their client's value, and their company's value together in complete harmony; one that is uniquely suited to promote growth and better business.

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