ValueSelling (Book Summary)

Chapter 1: ValueSelling: The Simplicity and Power are Built In

Ask, don’t tell.
Clearly connect the unique benefits of your product or service to their specific business and personal issues.
Underestimating the power that the executives have and the lack of power that middle management often has continues to be a blind spot for many sales executives.
Successful customer interaction entails effectively uncovering their business and personal issues by asking the right questions in the right order and with the right level of depth.

Chapter 2: The Foundation of ValueSelling: People Buy from People

While price and capabilities are and will always be important to the equation, customers are increasingly looking for partners who have the same values, can be trusted, and are accountable.
Most People will spend more time doing things to avoid looking bad rather than take the time to look good and succeed.
Creating a Differentiated VisionMatch: The key is that your prospects must envision the capabilities of the product or service you offer in a way which enables them to solve their problems better than with any other alternatives.
You cannot make a sale unless you satisfy a prospects personal reason to change or act, also known as the “what’s in it for me,” or WIIFFM, factor.
In reality, the higher up you go, the easier it often is to have a business conversation.

Chapter 3: Connecting the Dots for Your Customers

Chapter 4: Asking the Right Questions

We often demonstrate more value to our customers through the questions we asked them the answers we give.
By asking the right questions and getting agreement each step of the way, he was able to retrace the issues and the agreements they’d made in order to keep his customer moving up the Hill to agreement.
Once a prospect agrees a problem exists, it is an invitation to ask about their view of potential solutions – and to create a need for yours.
It’s not about you – focus on the needs of the prospects first so that you can differentiate your features.
Simply asking is not enough – To gain a clear, complete understanding of your prospect’s needs, you must ask the right questions in the right order:
- Open-ended questions enable you to learn the prospect’s perspective
- Probing allows you to uncover specific details.
- Confirming enables you to clarify for understanding.

Chapter 5: Crafting the Differentiated VisionMatch

Step 1 – Uncovering the Business Issue: The business issue is the high-level barrier that a company faces in achieving the stated business objective.
Step 2 – Develop the Problems
Step 3 – Develop the Prospect’s View of the Solution: It is important to understand the prospect’s view of what they think it will take to resolve their business issues and problems before providing a detailed that sales presentation or pitch.
The key 2 solution or consultative selling is becoming the diagnostician guide for the prospect to uncover the root causes. Get at the root cause of your prospect’s problems prior to offering a solution.
You could be different in 20 categories, but if your prospect cares only about one of those categories, then you really only have one differentiator that matters.

Chapter 6: Developing Value… Both Business and Personal

As sales professionals, we are going to uncover what each individual customer or prospect values and connected that with our unique solutions.
Even in a business setting, people’s personal agendas and motivations will drive their behavior.
One personal value is high, your prospects will work with you to craft and articulate the business value, but it personal value is low, there is a good chance you will never win the business.

Chapter 7: Identifying Power

We have learned that many salespeople fool themselves into believing that someone other than the one with power can sufficiently sell for them internally. Sometimes they are right; Yet often they’re not.
Develop a VisionMatch with each team member so that you can connect to and confirm their individual perspectives.
You dictate to the customer the conditions by which the sales process will unfold. One of the conditions – access to the senior executives or stakeholders in the project organization – is your standard mode of operation. How it might sound: “Our standard engagement mode includes an interview with all of the prospects stakeholders early on in the process.” Be prepared to walk away if access you request is not granted.
Bargaining for access entails identifying anything of value that the mid-level prospect requests during the sales engagement, and bartering for executive access in return.
As sales professionals, we have to objectively understand how our prospects are going to make decisions and leverage that in our sales cycle. The key is to not fool yourself into thinking you’re working with the power person and forecasting the sale as a closure when you’re not.
Maintain Contact with Power – Institute planned access or conditional access to ensure that the power person remains within your span of influence.

Chapter 8: Develop a Mutual Plan

Send a follow up email to your prospect confirming your understanding of the mutually-agreed upon-set of activities and milestones required for you to receive the contract.
The mutual plan is a written document to be crafted together by both you and your prospect. It begins with an understanding of the prospects decision process, internal procurement processes, and individual requirements to purchase your products and services.
ValueSelling plans and when the prospects has achieved the value she expected an has resolved the business issue your solution was intended to resolve.
The plan should include a confirmation of the differentiated vision match (business issue, problems an solution) and value, as well as a call to action – either for you or for your prospect – to clearly indicate the next steps in the sales process.
The best item to ask for in exchange for alterations to the plan is whatever will help close the sale faster.
Be sure the mutual plan includes all potential obstacles to winning the sale.

Chapter 9: Going for the Close

If the prospect has an objection, it must be on the table and addressed before you can move forward to the clothes.
As sales professionals, one of our key responsibilities is to ensure that our prospects risk is mitigated.
Once you have clarified the objection and diagnosed which area of the Formula is affected determine whether there is anything else that is keeping the prospects for moving forward. You want to surface ALL of your prospect’s concerns before you respond to any single objection. We call this the “sharp angle close.“ How it might sound: “If we can address and clarify the issue you have raised, how long before we can schedule delivery?“

Chapter 10: Implementing ValueSelling

A top sales professional that I worked with once told me that he wasn’t in sales; rather, he was in the customer success business.