BY JAMIE SCARBOROUGH
While our job at Sales Talent Agency is to help companies hire sales people, we spend a huge amount of our time ensuring our clients equip their hires for success. After all, if a salesperson we introduce does not perform well, our own value to the customer drops.
One of the most common issues we find is that a company is not clearly articulating a compelling value proposition consistently throughout their sales team. If your salespeople do not know what makes your company and its products unique and important, every cold call and customer engagement is weak.
Example
Quick exercise
Ask all of your salespeople and leaders to write down your company’s Value Proposition. If they come back uninspiring and varied, you need to fix this before making another sales hire/fire.
How to fix this
So what should your sales reps be saying about you? Here are 3 simple “beats” that have to be covered:
1. What problem are you solving?
As B2B salespeople, we are problem solvers. A company needs to make more money, be more efficient, retain their customers, inspire their employees… Our products must solve a business issue. The first part of your value proposition should clearly explain the problem you are solving.
2. Why are you uniquely better at solving this problem?
We have to show how our company provides a better solution than any of the alternatives (i.e. competitors, legacy practices, or doing nothing). Typical advantages show cost savings, improved performance, and/or better customer engagement.
3. What proof do you have that you have solved it for others?
We can say anything, but can we back it up with evidence? Examples of proof can include: specific names of current customers, performance metrics, awards, our own revenue/customer growth.
Once you have these basics worked out, you can add depth to your value proposition with some return-on-investment projections or historical data. You can further support it with reference letters, testimonials and case studies. But without the basics, your sales people are going to battle completely unarmed.
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For the love of sales!