Selling with value instead of price is the road to higher revenue and margins, stronger customer relationships, and more predictable forecasting and pipeline management.
The customers who buy on price alone are often the most demanding, least loyal, and first to leave when a competitor offers a lower cost. Value buyers become advocates.
But, as we have seen in previous tight economies, more customers are looking at price. The finance team is playing a more prominent role in buying conversations. There’s an increasingly cautious atmosphere around spending.
For sales professionals, the “old tried and true” methods are no longer adequate. Automatic annual renewals or reorders from your most loyal accounts are no longer a sure thing. To avoid selling at the lowest cost, it’s up to sellers to justify value and prove ROI.
As a sales leader, you need to prepare your sellers to have detailed conversations about the value your products and services deliver.
Can Your Sales Team Sell with Value?
Ask yourself these questions:
- Do my sales professionals have the confidence and skills to introduce value vs price?
- Can my sales professionals have conversations with finance team members?
- Can they communicate the return on investment of our products and services?
- How does our solution improve buyers’ efficiency and total cost of ownership?
- How can we defend margins and prevent going to the lowest price?
Being able to have high-level financial conversations is critically important right now. With keen preparation and insight, your sellers will be ready to defend your price when customers just look at features and benefits instead of value.
4 Steps to Value-Based Selling Conversations
Value-based selling is a sales approach that focuses on the value a product or service provides to your customer, rather than just its features or price. Instead of a traditional sales pitch, it requires research, active listening, and asking probing questions to identify a customer’s specific needs, goals, and challenges.
Coach your sellers to follow these four steps for effective value-based conversations with buyers.
1. Know the Audience
Before meeting with a buying group, coach your sellers to find out if the CFO or other member of the finance department will be present. Unlike other buyers, this person will likely have different motivations as they consider your offering.
CFOs are increasingly thinking beyond pure cost-cutting—they want purchases that drive growth, improve decision-making through better data, and create sustainable competitive advantages.
Your sellers can assume they’ll be very interested in return on investment (ROI); payback period; the total cost of ownership as well as upfront price (implementation, training, maintenance, upgrades); budget fit; and cash flow implications.
If your sellers can get a handle on the customer value proposition—the wants, needs, and motivations driving the purchasing decision—they can think of questions that will help them learn their perspective and desired outcomes.
2. See the Big Picture
Finance team members are looking for business partners who understand their company’s strategic priorities, not just vendors pushing products. When the CFO or their designee is part of the discussion, it’s likely there is more motivating their purchasing decision than just price.
Make sure your sales team members understand how your product or service fits into the bigger picture.
We once worked with a seller who was targeting a buyer of aftermarket parts for the industrial trucking industry. The seller spoke to technicians and other people in manufacturing to understand their use case for the products.
Over the course of his research, the seller learned that the current incumbent for brake parts was indeed delivering a less expensive product, but it was also prone to premature wear and failure.
The seller used this intel to show the CFO how his product, though more expensive, could improve overall efficiency while reducing the need for costly labor to repair premature failures. By demonstrating the total cost of ownership of the product, the seller’s case resonated with the CFO, and he was able to close the deal.
3. Understand the Customer’s Pain
Current market conditions have caused a variety of challenges for many organizations. Aside from strained budgets and slow sales, many companies are dealing with supply chain interruptions, and management is concerned they will get orders they can’t fulfill.
Make sure your sellers have the industry and market knowledge to address these concerns. Coach them to have clear talking points and illustrations for how your offering can help keep their business pointed forward, productive, and efficient. Demonstrating the short- and long-term value of your product or service will be invaluable when discussing price.
4. Enlist Your Advocates
Sellers should identify internal champions within the buying group who believe in the solution. These allies can advocate in rooms where the seller isn’t present, can address objections, and can provide intelligence about internal politics and decision-making dynamics.
The key is giving these champions the tools they need to sell internally: clear ROI data, answers to likely objections, and materials they can share that make them look good to their peers. Strong champions essentially become extensions of your sales team, multiplying your influence and credibility throughout the organization.
Coach your sellers to leverage these advocates by asking them if they can share what is most important to the finance team. What are the CFO’s biggest concerns likely to be? What are their most important priorities in terms of this purchase?
Building Long-Term Value in Sales
With CFOs increasingly involved in the sales cycle, are your sellers prepared for conversations about value and ROI? Give your sales professionals the sales training to position themselves as trusted advisors rather than as a vendor. Instead of fighting over dollars, they’ll have conversations about business impact and build long-term partnerships focused on customer success.
Find out how IMPACT Selling® from The Brooks Group can help your sales team sell with value, defend price, and protect profit margins.
