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All B2B businesses exist to sell a product or service that can address a business challenge. As industries evolve, companies acquire and develop attributes that allows the business to outperform competitors. We will refer to these attributes as value drivers for the remainder of the article.
The ability to effectively communicate value drivers to potential buyers is what allows companies succeed, and this helps buyers understand what business problems the product/service can solve.
If you need any motivation for why you need to get with the times and sell on value drivers & not features or price, consider this:
This is great news for sales. After all, this means that 7 out of 10 buyers are looking to us as sales executives to help them carry out business initiatives. If 70% of buyers are looking for help, then outbound prospecting should be easy. Right?
Not quite. Now consider this:
40% of reps say that outbound prospecting is the most challenging part of their sales process
-HubSpot
Yes, you read those figures correctly. And you might be asking yourself how those statistics can exist simultaneously. Both of these statements are true because sales reps today are not clearly communicating the positive business value to engage potential buyers. Instead, it’s more common for outbound sales reps to use cookie cutter email templates.
The facts we just examined are the very reasons prompting us to explain why selling on value drivers is the only way to sell. Further, we’ll talk about how to construct outbound outreach strategy that will engage buyers.
People don’t engage with sales to buy a product or service, they engage to find a solution that can solve a business problem. This is why selling “value” works. Outbound sales reps should focus on alleviating the prospect’s pain points, rather than focusing on features and functionality.
What about selling on price?
If buyers perceive that they will gain lots of business benefits for a reasonable price, then they will perceive the business solution to be of high value. This means that buyers will be willing to pay more for a product or service compared to its alternative that provides less value. The more sales reps focus on value, the less important price becomes.
It is important for sales reps to learn and communicate all the tangible and intangible benefits a product or service can provide. This will help reps tackle tough conversations, rejections and roadblocks effectively.
Value drivers are capabilities that adds worth. It gets potential buyers to engage out of fear of not relieving a specific pain points. More specifically, there are 4 main categories of value drivers that outbound sales teams should leverage:
Total cost of ownership is a phrase that defines all costs incurred from a transaction. Some organizations describe these as hard and soft costs. Others use the words direct and indirect costs. Either way, all products and services provide a mixture of both.
Value Statement: “At {Company} we’ve helped customers {improve or alleviate soft or hard costs}”
Time to Value (TtV) is the time the time it takes to complete a task. The goal of any business is to minimize time TtV to be more productive, scale quicker, deliver faster, etc.
In outbound sales for example, time to value is all about increasing efficiency and productivity. Optimizing time to value will reduce time spent prospecting and creating personalized messaging. Decreasing TtV can affect any aspect of the sales process. The goal is to shrink the sales cycle while gaining a high value customer.
Other examples for B2B software companies include:
Value Statement: “At {Company} we’ve helped customers {decrease time to value by X}.”
Risk reduction or risk mitigation involves reducing the loss or the likelihood of a loss. This is a value driver that is especially important to any leadership teams. C-Level executives main job is to plan ahead and foreshadow potential setback that may hurt the vision. For sales reps that are reaching out to these personas, it’s important not to forget to leverage intangible value drivers to increase engagement.
Here are some examples:
Value Statement: “At {Company} we’ve helped customers {reduce X risk by Y}”
Some products and services allow customers to gain a competitive advantage over competitors. These gains can come in many forms:
Value Statement: “At {Company} we’ve helped customers {gain a Z competitive advantage}”
As an outbound sales rep, understanding and communicating the positive business value is crucial to your success. These value drivers should be clearly communicated throughout your entire sales process so potential buyers can understand the full scope of your offering. Additionally, this will attract buyers attention in order for you to earn their time and attention.
Stop using cookie cutter email templates that are not personalized. Focus your energy toward communicating your organization’s tangible and intangible value. And learn to compose strategic outbound messaging that will deliver results.
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