What comes so easily to the top 6% and some of the top 26% is so very difficult for others.
Most of your salespeople have very little capability to build value in the first place. Talking about what your company does better or differently is not building value. Telling a prospect what your value proposition is, does not build value. Value comes from 3 things:
- Uncovering the compelling reason(s) to buy and buy from you,
- Understanding the impact, ripple effect and cost of those compelling reasons, and
- Positioning yourself and company as the clear choice to help with numbers one and two. Now the salesperson is the added value.
Here are a few random thoughts accumulated through the combined efforts of evaluating more than 650,000 salespeople and training tens of thousands of others. In no particular order:
- The moment a salesperson attempts to be competitive on price, any value he or she may have built is forgotten and can no longer be leveraged. All the focus is on price.
- Compromising or negotiating on price sets a precedent. All future discussions about pricing will be based on this compromise.
- If a salesperson does successfully build or create value, or position himself/herself as the added value, they must not allow price to be one of the decision-making criteria.
- 53% of all salespeople are too uncomfortable with the subject to have a conversation about money. How important is it that your salespeople have a conversation about money?
- 33% of all salespeople think that just $500 is a lot of money. How much money are your salespeople supposed to be asking for?
- 40% of all salespeople don’t determine whether their prospect is able to spend what they are about to propose.
- 64% of all salespeople make their own major purchases in a way that will not support the sales outcomes they must achieve.
- 86% of all salespeople believe what their prospects tell them, even when the prospect is bluffing about needing a lower/better price or that the decision will be based on price.
- 52% of all salespeople become emotional as soon as they hear that their price may be too high.
- 47% of all salespeople believe that if they hold their ground on price, regardless of how they do it, their prospect won’t like them anymore.
All of these statistics come from Objective Management Group. What does it all mean?
Not only don’t most salespeople know how to build value, but even when they do, they quickly undermine it with their self-limting beliefs, inappropriate behaviors, outdated experiences, and desire to have a competitive price as if coming in with the right pricing will make them a hero. Unfortunately, it makes them just like everyone else and there isn’t much value in that.
