How To Move Your B2B Sales Team To A Value-Based Selling Process

For nearly every business, building stronger communication and maintaining a closer relationship with clients is paramount. This is where the value-based selling process truly shines, enabling your team to get closer to clients and meet them where they are, while impressing upon potential customers that whatever you’re selling is something that they need to buy. A question remains, though, in how you can transition your team over to this model from their normal mode of doing business. Read on, as we clue you in on the details.

Your Traditional B2B Sales Model

First, let’s define what’s typical for many B2B sales teams out there. One approach, adopted by sales teams with some formal training will employ a multi-step process that cover a few main, overarching points that are required to get to the sale:

• Positioning brand as an expert—This sets the company, salesperson, and product up as specialized and trusted, gaining an “in” with the prospect.
• Building rapport with the customer—From there, a good salesperson will start to build up a relationship, but without any pushiness in regards to products/services.
• Qualifying the lead—This lets the salesperson weed out prospects who aren’t worth the time, or to determine if they’re the decision-maker or not.
• Asking questions—This is where a good salesperson will learn more specifics about the customer and their situation, setting up the eventual sale.
• The money talk—Leaving the “money talk” to the end of the sales process can create unnecessary hurdles, so it’s best to learn more about the prospect’s budget at this point in the process, before pitching them the product or service.
• Presenting the pitch—This is where the product or service is introduced, and the salesperson demonstrates how it can best solve their issues.
• Fielding objections—Sales objections are part of the process, and it’s up to a salesperson to handle them by listening, then responding to each point.
• Nabbing the sale—The salesperson makes the ask, and if all has gone to plan, will get the sale for your team, thus bringing in revenue.

Now, the value-based selling model might use some of these same steps, but instead of putting so much emphasis on the product or service, the sales team will shift focus onto the value that the customer will gain post-sale. This is easier said than done, however, so next we’ll be covering some of the important points to keep in mind as your team makes the shift.

Moving to A Value-Based Framework

One of the biggest challenges that salespeople have here is conveying the value itself. A helpful overarching strategy is shifting from a product-based mindset to an outcome-based mindset, and there are five points here that will aid your sales team in making that switch.

1. Think about the product in terms of how it can help a prospect beyond the obvious “use X to do Y” fashion that you’re used to.
2. Save the pitch for later, after earning trust and understanding their needs.
3. Educate instead of going straight for the sale.
4. Assuage fears preemptively.
5. Highlight personal benefits, if any exist.

With all that in mind, you should be plenty equipped to tackle the switch to value-based selling. Remember to put the customer first, and be proactive to secure their business!