The Power of Value Selling

2How You Sell Is Just as Important as What You Sell

Having spent more than 25 years in sales leadership, I've learned one certainty: Change is inevitable—and the speed of change is accelerating.

Buyers will make a purchase decision for a number of reasons. They could be on the hunt for a brand‐new buy for a novel solution that has been identified to support a crucial initiative; they might be looking to rebuy a solution and are exploring options with multiple vendors; or perhaps they're replacing one solution with something completely different based on a new paradigm of how to address an existing need.

In the end, it doesn't matter. Regardless of the type of buy, how buyers buy has changed. That means how salespeople sell must also evolve.

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Before we can evolve, we need to examine our understanding of what “sales” is at its core and the salesperson's role in the process.

From the beginning of commerce, selling has been defined as the transference of confidence. It flows from the seller to the buyer and is focused on solving problems that are worth solving in the buyer's mind. The salesperson's job is to facilitate the prospect's buying process, not to force the buyer to conform to the salesperson's methodology—and to do this you have to focus on the uniqueness of the buyer.

Every buyer's decision‐making process is individual to that person and organization. Top‐performing sellers not only acknowledge that individuality, they work with it, not against it. This includes ...