Business Corner
STRATEGIES & ANALYSIS
BY PHIL PHILLIPS, PHD
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
PHILLIPS@CHEMARKCONSULTING.NET
Value selling. Anything new here?
Learn what it
takes to join
the ranks of
elite sellers.
Being involved in the paint and coatings industry for some length of time and ealing in all aspects of business
assessments, I thought I had seen just about
everything new under the sun when it comes
to ‘selling techniques,’ especially selling vaule,
to coatings, paints, adhesives, sealants and
specialty chemicals customers. However, as it
turns out there is something new.
During a recent Adhesives & Sealants
Council meeting in Savannah, GA, I had the
pleasure of hearing a new and compelling
twist to the old saga of value selling. Landy
Chase, a nationally prominent sales speaker
and author of the upcoming book Competitive
Selling (McGraw-Hill, release date July 2010).
He presented his tactical methodology regard-
ing this subject entitled, “Winning on Value vs.
Losing on Price-Competing Successfully in a
‘Me-Too’ Marketplace.”
Before delving into Chase’s thesis, I
researched some definitions to secure the
meanings of value selling. Wikipedia includes
value selling under the definition of “solution
selling” and relates to the success of this type
of selling as the “resolution of pain.”
As a result, Solution Selling has become
more broadly defined to include dimensions
of “sales process,” “competitive selling” and
“value selling.” Solution selling is a special
approach to sales. Rather than just promoting an
existing product, the salesperson focuses on the
customer’s pain(s) and addresses the issue with
his or her offerings (product and services). The
resolution of the pain is what constitutes a true
solution.
This precise definition is very accurate when
considering how Keith M. Eades, author of The
New Solution Selling, defines a solution. In his
book, he defines a solution as “a mutually shared
answer to a recognized problem, and the answer
provides measurable improvement.”
On the flip side, Eades is saying that if either
the sales persuader or the customer fails to
understand and communicate accurately what
the solution to a problem looks like, no value
selling (solution selling) can take place.
Someone said years ago that the successful
selling formula was like the operetta acronym
AIDA, that is:
• A = Attention. Get the customer’s undivided
attention;
• I = Interest. Gain the customer’s genuine
interest in what you’re selling;
• D = Desire. Get the customer to genuinely
desire to possess your product/service; and
• A = Action. Get the customer to buy.
Another simplistic, but often used staple is the
phrase/formula, “Create fear (in the customers’
mind), then rescue them from the danger you’ve
placed them in.” These formula/sayings are
alright as background music to the real act of
value selling but they really fail to communicate
how to do it.
Chase, however, does tell you how to do it by
creating a compelling and lasting personal value
with your existing and target customers. He
reminds us that high-paid professionals have
trends associated with them just like market
research data. Doctors, lawyers and salespersons
have always made higher incomes than most
others. However, the first two professionals—
doctors and lawyers—are slipping in income status while, in general, salespersons are trending
up. He states an old established and well-worn
fact that the top 20% of sales persons produce
80% of the sales.
