‘Providing value’ has become a catchphrase in the world of sales, but there’s a massive problem with trying to deliver value in our outreach:
Value looks different to every single prospect.
Of course, one of the jobs of a salesperson is to discover the individual challenges of their prospects and match up their product or service as a solution. However, too many salespeople hope they stumble upon how to deliver value to prospects, and often go through an entire conversation without learning what problems our prospects have that we can solve.
To solve this problem, we sat down with Paul Reilly, author of Selling Through Tough Times and co-author of Value-Based Selling. He explained to us that while value may be uniquely defined by our prospects, we can definitely systemize how we discover that value so we can serve more prospects and convert more sales.
Because we’re trimming hope from our sales strategy, we’ll use the acronym TRIM to guide us through creating a system with a trigger, ensuring it’s repeatable, building in ways to improve it and of course, ensuring it’s measurable and getting us results.
T – Trigger: Paul recommends starting this system before ever scheduling a meeting – instead, it needs to start when we’re reaching out to prospects for the first time. That means prepping meaningful insight that applies to them/their role or hinting at a problem we believe they may have. Not having that information ready ahead of time means we won’t be able to bring it to bear during our first conversation.
R – Repeatable: Making this system repeatable begins with a model we can use that is customer-focused. Paul says this can be summed up in the acronym ‘GET’, which means grab their attention, establish the need, and tease the prospect with a benefit.
To prepare a unique ‘GET’ for your next prospect, have a pre-call planning process that allows you to quickly get spun-up on this prospect’s company, their position, any trigger events and potential needs that you can show up with solutions or guidance for.
I – Improvable: To improve the process of discovering value in each prospect conversation, Paul says it is critical to assess each conversation and ask, ‘Did I achieve my call objectives?’ and, ‘What did I learn about the prospect in that conversation that will allow me to provide more tailored value in the future?’
M – Measurable: A unique way that Paul recommends measuring how well we’re doing in discovering what value our prospect is interested in is to measure the amount of savings you’re able to generate for your prospect. This can be measured in time saved, dollars recaptured, employees retained, etc. If, at the end of a few months of outreach, a salesperson can have a prospect agree that they’ve been given a certain dollar amount of ideas in savings and profit impact, there’s a much higher chance of that prospect becoming a customer.