Sales Training Series #7

Insights from my recent trainings

Welcome back to another Sales Training series!

These posts are intended to give you insight into what it’s like to train with me while providing actionable tips you can use in your day to day.

Note: I intentionally keep the descriptions of my clients vague for privacy reasons.

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Influencing the prospects Value System

Prospects use Value Systems when making buying decisions.

Value Systems are a set of beliefs/perspectives that inform what “attributes” are important to them when buying a new solution.

Important attributes can be things like: Price, Functionality, Outcomes, etc.

Each attribute holds weight in the mind of the buyer. Attributes are also in a constant state of flux surfacing as a response to new information / stimulus.

This is why sometimes Price can seemingly be the most important thing until the prospect sees superior Functionality. Then it becomes about Functionality, etc

This is normal.

However, there is one attribute that carries the most persuasive weight (Pareto Principle) .. and that is the impact of the Outcomes they desire.. aka the buyers real “Why”

Getting them to share their real “Why” is a messy process because other attributes like Price can rear their ugly head to distract sellers (and buyers) from what’s truly important.

But sometimes it truly does come down to price.. which is fine we just want to know about it early so we can Disqualify those prospects out quickly.

Take the example of one of my clients who sells an enterprise software with the main value prop being cost savings.

He was (and still is) working a deal with a buyer who was already exploring opportunities with other vendors.

In the early stages of the deal, my client let the buyer know what the investment range would look like if they decided to work together.

The buyer said it was significantly more expensive than other “comparable” solutions and no way they would spend that much.. But interestingly enough this didn’t deter the buyer from wanting to continue the conversation with the seller (IYKYK)

For those that don’t know: If the buyer perceives your solution to be comparable to other options in your space, they will also expect it to be in the same price range. The fact that pricing is not comparable created Cognitive Dissonance which opened a Curiosity Gap that the buyer felt needed to be closed (why they wanted to continue exploring)

Based on their conversation, I told my client (the seller) that the first value attribute to pop up was Price and that now we need to challenge it in order to find out just how important it is..