Tuesday Tips

Let’s Talk About Sales 

Unique Value Propositions are typically created by leadership.  UVPs unify a team around what makes you different from competitors.  The exercise of discovering your UVP is crucial.   

In simplest form the UVP is 2 elements;  

1: Your company’s passion, your purpose. 

2: What markets, companies, businesses, represent your sweet spot, your niche.  

Discovering a UVP helps companies identify gaps to continue molding the company around these two elements.  All good. 

The UVP may hurt in sales.  A UVP can help salespeople be clear with a prospect exactly what you do and how your customers benefit.  Delivered as a 15 second commercial to determine fit is useful.   

Then a crucial pivot takes place.  It sounds something like this. 

“Hopefully that provides a sense of what we do.  Let’s not focus on us. Let’s discuss how your company measures value and what success would look like if we were to work together.” 

No prospect should care what you think “value” is for them. The pivot turns focus to them.  They have metrics that drive their business, and each business measures success and business outcomes.  Your job, as a sales professional, is to uncover that from the get-go.  Some salespeople have the outcomes conversation later in the process after grounding the prospect in the technical aspects of your solution.   

When the technical aspects of your solution take center stage, you self-sabotage. You do this by appealing to the logical side of the buyer’s brain.   

Stay on the emotional side of the brain, where buying decisions are made. Focus on outcomes/results that are most important to the prospect.  We do this at the beginning of our process.  We collaborate with the prosect on a message that will resonate with the decision makers. We stay on the emotional side of the brain by focusing on what they care about.  These outcomes will almost always fall into one of a few buckets; 

1. 1. Revenue growth 
   2. Cost containment 
   3. Risk aversion 
   4. Regulatory compliance 

Focusing on outcomes at the beginning of the process will resonate with those authorized to buy our solution.  We will clear technical hurdles at some point.  Leave that until the prospect has provided their definition of value.   

Don’t fall so in love with your Unique Value Proposition that it becomes a blunt tool to try to convince.  Use it as a quick check on whether there may be a fit. Then spend 90% of your time on how the prospects’ company measures value.   

Value is in the eye of the beholder, no matter how awesome your UVP is. 

Quote

“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.”

Gen. Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State