Value Added Selling Is More Than a Book
By Tom Reilly
Tom Reilly is president and founder of Tom Reilly Training, he is also a featured speaker at the upcoming Universityof Industrial Distribution. His classes include "Coaching for Sales Success: How to Create Value-Added Sales Culture", "Value Added Selling" and "Crush Price Objections." Mr. Reilly has authored 10 books, over 200 articles, a video series and a CD album.
Value Added Selling is a philosophy and a process; it's strategic and tactical. When I began pioneering the Value Added Sales philosophy in the early 1980s, I felt like a lone voice in the wilderness. I wrote my first book on Value Added Selling over twenty years ago. Since then, I've written more that 100 articles on the topic and spoken to tens of thousands of salespeople and their managers on Value Added Selling. The new edition of Value Added Selling (McGraw-Hill, 2003) has been translated into Danish, Chinese, and Indian. This is truly a global message. And still, there is much confusion and little real understanding of how to sell value added. Value Added Selling is more than a clich or fad or this year's sales and marketing theme. Value Added Selling is a mindset, an attitude and a paradigm deeply rooted in your psyche and demonstrated daily in your behavior. It is characterized by these five things.
The Three Dimensions of Value
Value Added Salespeople sell three things. the product, the company, and themselves. This three-dimensional solution defies commodity-like comparisons. The same product from the same company from two different salespeople is two different solutions altogether. Logically, there can be no generic solution because no two people are the same. To reinforce this point, the only differentiation that may exist in this competitive comparison could rest with the salesperson.
Two Fortune-100 Companies surveyed their customers to determine how much value their salespeople contributed to the sale; they discovered that 35-37% of the value that customers receive comes from the salespeople with whom they deal. Value Added Salespeople don't make sales calls; they go on job interviews with customers. They ask customers to hire them to be their personal representative with the supplier's company.
A Dynamic Blend
As successful marketing campaigns employ both push dynamics (business you pursue) and pull dynamics (business you attract), successful sales campaigns include a blend of offensive and defensive selling initiatives. Offensive selling is pursuing new business while defensive selling is protecting and growing existing business. Value Added Salespeople invest sales time in both strategies.
Value Added Selling respects account retention equally with market share gains. Companies whose sales and marketing efforts are directed only at acquiring new business suffer from a phenomenon called "pipeline-itis." They pursue new business while ignoring the most viable source of new business. existing customers. These companies have revolving doors on the fronts and backs of their buildings. The reason they focus so much on new business is that they must replace the business they lose from existing customers.
Think Strategically, Sell Tactically
Value Added Salespeople think and plan strategically and execute tactically. They understand the strategic impact of their efforts. they view things from 10,000 feet. They understand how to customize their solutions at the tactical level. customer-to-customer. Value Added Salespeople must be good businesspeople. When they talk to customers, customers know they are dealing with knowledgeable businesspeople. Salespeople know they must maintain their strategic view while breaking down their solution to the tactical level in terms individual customers relate to.
One area where this is especially relevant is in pricing decisions. Value Added Salespeople that have pricing authority must realize the impact their decisions have on other sales territories. Random acts of discounting are not strategic. Pricing decisions are strategic because they affect the brand's image, demand, and profitability. Why would this decision be handed to someone who fails to appreciate the strategic significance of their actions? In the Value Added Selling philosophy, salespeople must make prudent price decisions.
Reactive Versus Proactive Value Added Selling
Value Added Salespeople are order makers, not order takers. They understand the value of personal initiative in sales. Reactive salespeople have a wait-and-see attitude; they depend on the customer to take the initiative and then respond to the customer's lead. Value Added Salespeople have a reap-and-sow attitude; they know that sales success is an active process.
Value Added Salespeople seek ways to add value, not cost, with their solution. This presumes initiative. Value Added Selling is a proactive philosophy; it is everything salespeople do before price becomes an issue. This value adding approach preempts price objections. Proactive Value Added Salespeople create opportunities for themselves while creating value for customers.
A Give-And-Take Relationship
Value Added Selling is built on a win-win philosophy. Both parties must win or no one wins. If a salesperson wins and the customer loses, the customer will eventually find another supplier. the salesperson ultimately loses. If the customer wins and the salesperson loses, the salesperson will resent the business and service levels will fall. the customer ultimately loses.
Value Added Selling is about contributing maximum value to the customer and extracting maximum value from this relationship. This win-win Value Added Selling philosophy spreads the risk and the wealth. It's a shared commitment by buyers and sellers.
Becoming a Value Added Salesperson begins with your business philosophy. As attitude drives behavior, selling philosophy drives selling technique. Value Added Selling is an active process of seeking ways to create and extract value from mutually rewarding business relationships. The fundamental business question for salespeople to ask is: Are we giving as good as we're getting, and are we getting as good as we're giving? Value Added Selling is more than a book, speaker or seminar. It is a philosophy of doing business.
Author byline: Tom Reilly is a professional speaker and author of the book, Value Added Selling (McGraw-Hill, 2003). You may reach Tom through his website: www.TomReillyTraining.com.