An Article By Steve Waterhouse

A Plane Guy Walks Into A Car Company

Ok, it’s a bad start to a joke, but Ford’s hiring of a
Boeing executive as CEO is representative of one of the
biggest problems facing sales professionals today. There was
a time when senior management was comprised of people who
had grown up in that business and had a deep understanding
and love of it. Those people were wowed by your latest
widget or version and instantly saw the value you brought to
their company.

Today, more and more
companies are run by people with experience gained in other
businesses. The lack the depth of knowledge to instantly see
your value and they are hardly wowed by your latest stuff.
They know business and only focus on the bottom line.

What does this mean to us?

It means you must be able to
make a bottom-line case for your offerings. You must be able
to paint these people a picture of the value you bring that
makes it clear they will see the ROI they want in the
time-frame they need.

Go back to school.

If you only learned about the features and benefits of
your product or service, you are ill-prepared to sell in
this market. It’s time to go back and study your offering
from a strictly value-based perspective. Even if you already
use value-selling, it’s time to sharpen your tools.

Here’s your homework…

Go through every aspect of your offering and ask yourself
this simple question, “Exactly how will it affect the
client’s bottom line?” When I say ‘exactly’, I mean in
dollars and cents. You must be able to explain how much
money the client will make buy buying from you.

Unfortunately, white papers developed by your marketing
department are often discounted by the prospect. It’s your
analysis of the ROI based on the client’s actual number that
they want to hear.

Alan Mulally, the new CEO of Ford, may not know cars, but
he knows how to read a P & L. If you want to sell this breed
of CEO, you need to know how your offering will make his
bottom line shine!

Have a great week and keep
selling,

Steve
Waterhouse

Steve Waterhouse is Principal
and Founder of Predictive Results, (www.predictiveresults.com), a
sales consulting and training company that helps companies
dramatically increase their sales. He can be reached at
1-800-57-LEARN orinfo@waterhousegroup.com.

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