Every industry seems to be undergoing some kind of a change. When market leaders are agile, they identify those changes quickly and they adapt.
What kinds of changes can impact your value proposition?
- Your business was bought, or you bought a new business
- Environmental regulations
- New Laws and or regulations
- Technology change
- Market consolidation
- A Pandemic
One thing we can count on is change. As you are reading this, I would like you to think about the changes you have seen in the last year.
Do you know the changes and challenges your customers’ have experienced? What changes to you expect this year? Trouble arises when your salesperson uses a dated value proposition.
This is a problem for two reasons…
First it shows your salesperson and your company do not understand the market of today. This is something your buyer will feel and instantly doubt their ability to trust your team.
Secondly, and even more costly, is when your sales team uses a dated value proposition, it negatively impacts future sales.
How do you know if your salespeople are using a dated value proposition?
The first step is to identify the changes buyers in the markets you serve have experienced since your sales team was trained, your web site was launched, and your sales brochures were developed.
Second, conduct a value proposition audit with a third party interviewing your customers and prospects.
Third, adapt your value proposition based on the insights gained in your value proposition audit.
Last, train your salespeople how and when to use your value proposition and how to customize it to each of the buyer persona’s they engage with.
A couple of quick rules when doing this kind of a value proposition audit:
- Ask and listen, do not try to defend or sell through any issues identified. This is the quickest way to end a conversation.
- Do not have your salespeople ask these questions and report to you. You need to hear the information first hand. (Besides, you need your team selling).
- Do not do this process in a survey. Why? The most valuable part of this process is capturing the current market problems your buyers are having in their voice. A survey will not do this.
Once you have current market data you need to ask yourself one key question…
Based on what we heard from our customers, does the value proposition and tools we give our sales team match what our buyers told us?
In most cases what I have personally observed over the last year is that most value propositions sales teams are using is dated and needs some tweaking to reconnect today.
Having served company Presidents for over 30 years I hear that voice saying…
“I hear what you are saying Mark, but this seems like it is a lot of work and will take a great deal of time…we have numbers to hit…”
If that is a concern you are wrestling with let me assure you, when we complete this research for clients it only tales 30 days to gather the insights we need to help your sales team become more effective and efficient.
What happens if you don’t do a value proposition audit?
You will hope what your salespeople are saying is connecting with current and new customers. You will lose opportunities you could have won. You will lose base business sales to competitors who updated their value propositions.
So how about your company?
When was the last time you updated your value proposition?
Are you sure what your salespeople are saying is helping your business or hurting it now and into the future?
If you would like to learn, more please download my free EBook on leveraging the voice of your customers to profitably grow sales at this link. https://otbsalessolutions.com/voc/
