Introduction
This is the fourth in a series of articles
brought to you by Robert White - CEO of Lucidus Ltd
dealing with the subject of 'Value'
in the sales process.
So far, we have discussed the problem, the symptoms you might see and causes of them and the the types of value you might look for.
In this installment, we discuss how you go about identifying
value.
How do you identify 'Value'
You have probably undertaken some work to identify value
in your products and services; you must have in order to produce your sales and
marketing materials. This is an important and necessary step, but will probably
have been focussed largely on what you can provide rather than what
your customer needs.
To benefit from your work, you
must build on the work you have already undertaken to determine customer
value and to clarify what we call your total Value Capability - that is
to say the full breadth and depth of the value that your products and
services can potentially deliver to any customer.
By looking upstream and downstream of the points at which your products
and services have their direct impact, you can confirm your analysis of
the quantified and un-quantified value and add the invisible and innovation
value.
It is important to then 'stress test' claims for value generation to avoid including
unfounded claims that the customer will quickly uncover.
What emerges is a set of 'value drivers' that clearly describe, in the
terminology of the customer, all of the ways in which your products and
services could potentially deliver value to any given customer.
Once you are clear about your Value Capability, your are in a position to
produce a simple 'checklist' to help establish what the customer's actual
requirements might be but expressed in Value terms. This helps with
qualifying a potential customer and provides a strong base for a
conversation based on Value rather than feature/function or price.
Blatant plug alert!
Lucidus have products and services based around
value identification
that greatly simplify the process, thereby shortening the time required
to identify and exploit your Value Capability. For an overview
of what we can do for you, please take a look at our
Value Selling page or our Webcasts.
Next
In the next part we will discuss
the tools you might need when determining value.
Next >>>
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