How many times have you had a sales person ask, “What’s our Value Proposition?”

The question I always ask next is, “Why do you ask?”  This is sort of a snotty response, and it doesn’t endear me to the sales team, but it has a purpose.

In my experience, too many sales people simply take the value proposition given by marketing and restate it to the prospect.  This is the worst use of a value proposition.  If you are in Marketing and you enable your sales team this way, then you are not helping.

A value proposition is a list of reasons why a prospect might benefit from buying your product or service, and it usually contains a number of elements.  The first is identifying a need, the second is some sort of differentiation, and the third is some sort of proof.

For example, “If you want fine flavor, then the smooth taste of Camel cigarettes is what nine out of ten doctors recommend.”   Parsed, the need is fine flavor and health, the differentiation is smooth taste, and the proof is that doctors recommend them.

While value propositions are good for internal dialogue and evaluation, as you know, simply stating the reasons why you should buy a product or service is bad sales form.  It’s also lazy.

When a prospect asks you, “What’s your value proposition?”  They are simply saying, “I don’t have time for this… just give me the Cliff’s Notes version, and I will decide.”

But the process they are going through is: 1) Do I really have this need? 2) Is this really any better? And 3) Do I really believe this, or do I trust you?  There is no way that a single “Statement” or “Value Proposition” will ever do justice to a prospect in answering these questions.  But if you fail to answer any of these, your sales and marketing efforts will falter.

So instead, slow down, and go back to basics.  Take your Value Proposition and turn it into a set of questions to determine whether the prospect has the need you believe your product or service can fill.  Then determine the prospect’s perception of the value to satisfying that need.  If it’s worth solving, then look at what their current vision is for solving that need.  Only then can you begin to explore an alternate vision and differentiation.  Your differentiation may be simply that you are not spouting a value proposition, but guiding the prospect through a process of discovery and helping them see things differently.  Proof doesn’t come until the prospect has a vision of capabilities they might need.

But please don’t just give your value proposition.  You might as well sit back, light up that Camel, and wait for good health to flow your way.

Do Great Things!

Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)

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In Norman Maclean’s, A River Runs Through It, he tells a story of two brothers growing up in rural Montana and fishing the Big Blackfoot River in Montana.  The book is a lyrical and beautiful story, and I highly recommend the book over the movie.  In one passage, the older brother, Norman, after watching his younger brother Paul catch an enormous fish while being swept into the rapids, remembers:

“However one closeup picture of him at the end of this day remains in my mind, as if fixed by some chemical bath.  Usually, just after he finished fishing he had little to say unless he saw he could have fished better.  Otherwise, he merely smiled.  Now flies danced around his hatband.  Large drops of water ran from under his has on to his face and then into his lips when he smiled.

At the end of this day, then, I remember him both as a distant abstraction in artistry and as a closeup in water and laughter.

My father always felt shy when compelled to praise one of his family, and his family always felt shy when he praised them.  My father said, “You are a fine fisherman.”

My brother said, “I’m a pretty good with a rod, but I need three more years before I can think like a fish.”

How does this relate to sales and marketing?  Simply, that if we want to be better marketers and sales people, we need to “think like a client.”  Too often, for example, marketers think; how can I send more emails, rather than how can I provide content that is valuable to my clients?  Or sales people think; how can I close this deal, rather than, is this the right product of service for my client?

How is your company** geared to think like a client?  From your call answering message, to your website navigation, to your ease of doing business, if you want to catch (develop) clients, you need to think like a client.  The first step is to look at your business and interactions as they would.

Do Great Things!

Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)

* Like fish portraints?  Shop this guy: http://www.fishartist.net/fish-artist-gallery.htm

** Footnote:  An old colleague, Dave Peterson, once told me he could tell the profitability of a set of manufacturing companies to +/- 1%  within ten seconds of walking onto the manufacturing floor.  He based his estimates on the neatness of the floor which gave him an estimate of the facilities process efficiency.  I can now apply Stocking’s corollary to the Peterson Rule:  The profitability of a company is directly proportional to the client experience.

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I bought a pair of hiking poles from REI for a trek across the Grand Canyon.  I used them on a couple of warm up runs in the high desert on dusty hikes when I discovered that the locking mechanisms began failing.  I assumed that dust was preventing the poles from locking.  Because I change pole lengths depending on whether I am ascending or descending, I didn’t want to risk having them fail on a 25 mile/10,000 foot elevation through-hike.  I tossed them in the trunk of my car and used another pair with a different locking mechanism.  Was I a disappointed customer or a disappointed client?

Marketers need to think about this question, “Do we have clients or customers?”

In the classic definition, customers are people who buy a products from you, and clients buy services.  The problem with that definition is that the lines are blurring with the advent of the Internet where I can get the same things you sell from three other vendors at a lower price.  (This may even be true for products which are not commodities.)  Marketers need to consider the lifetime value of their buyers, word of mouth, and the speed of negative comments that can happen through social media.  It may be cheaper to think of buyers as customers.  It’s easy to do in this tough economy with a micro-focus on the bottom line.  If they never come back to you because they are only going to ever buy one widget from you in their lives, maybe you can think of your buyers as customers.

But I believe we might be better off thinking of our buyers as clients, regardless of whether we sell a product or a service.  It changes our way of thinking: the way we structure our businesses, train our employees, develop products, and deal with our buyers.

A couple of months after my hike, I found the poles in the trunk of my car and brought them back to REI.  They were almost brand new.  I expected some hassle.  Instead, they happily accepted them back, indicated they would submit a case to the manufacturer so they could make the product better, apologized, gave me my money back, and pointed me in the direction of another set with a different locking mechanism.  I was their client.  I recommend everyone buy their outdoor gear from REI!

Do your clients recommend you?

Do Great Things!

Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)

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