I had a conversation with a startup sales rep recently about his company’s go-to market strategy. He was lamenting that they were focusing on a technology sales versus one based on benefits. This sentiment with startups is still very prevalent; organizations still often focus on features and functions instead of benefits far too often.
We do talk about Value Propositions a lot within our blog, because it is such an important part of the sales cycle. A couple of gems from the past were our blogs on email value proposition and Selling to VITO. The key to a good value proposition for B2B sales is focusing on benefits for the customer. If you are talking benefits for B2B sales you should focus on the following:
Increasing revenue: Growing sales is one of the goals for almost every business. This is often one of the most difficult benefits to quantify for customers
Decrease Costs and Expenses: This is top of mind for many key contacts within organizations. This is often much easier to identify and quantify than many of the other benefits.
Improve productivity: This can apply to both people and equipment. Making the organization more productive means growth without extra costs.
Avoiding something bad: This category is a catch-all for many things that could affect the company or key members within the leadership team. It could include things like bad PR, regulatory problems, or legal issues.
Depending on the organization and contact within that organization the value proposition will need to be changed. A sales and marketing leader would typically be most interested in growing revenue while a CFO would likely be most interested in decreasing cost and expenses. The best value proposition has some examples of quantifiable benefits. These are not always easy to find, but they can be determined. I will be writing a future blog with some tips.
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