GROWTH… WITH THE RIGHT CUSTOMERS?
You need customers who will add value to your products.
What value do you offer ?
Products/services orientation,
We teach our sales teams that they need to have a thorough understanding of our products and services. They learn the essential characteristics and the advantages that these characteristics offer to customers. The product, the characteristics, and the advantages — that’s the order to follow!
However, that’s completely inaccurate and outdated. That logic comes to us from the industrial era, when manufacturers used value-added processes to refine the raw materials and create a finished product. In short, the manufacturer determined the value. In this post-industrial age, however, manufacturers don’t create value.
Allow me to repeat myself in case you didn’t read that right. Manufacturers don’t create value!
Customers determine and create value. Your approach to enhancing value creation must therefore begin, continue, and end with the customer. Follow these three steps to develop a healthy approach to selling value.
1. Begin with the customer
Start with the customer’s strategy and processes instead of starting with the product. In order to create value, you have to understand where the customer wants to go, how they want to get there, and what’s preventing them from reaching their destination.
2. Continue and collaborate with the customer
Evaluate how your capabilities (products or services) can be applied to the customer’s processes to combat external pressures and internal difficulties and capitalize on emerging growth opportunities.
3. Work with the customer
Over the long term, you have to make sure that your customers are enjoying the value associated with using your products or services. Quantify this value as much as possible to make sure that both of you — you and your customer — understand the economic impact of your services.
By following this rigorous process of mutual value creation, you’ll be able to set yourself apart from all the other salespeople and manufacturers caught in the trap of selling the product, also known as the “The Product-Push Trap™.” You’ll quickly be able to identify the customers who really need your products or services. It’s these customers who will work in partnership with you, since they will recognize that this relationship will bring them value. By creating value for your customers, you’ll generate interest and even demand for your solutions.
Continue down the path to excellence and offer an exceptional customer experience.,
President and Customer Relations Specialist
