SellingPower.com offers an excellent article titled End Those Last-Minute Negotiations. The article quotes one of our favorite trainer/authors – Jeff Thull. Thull rightly ties together two critical pieces of closing a sale – value proposition and money.
Many salespeople are clumsy with putting the right value proposition in play. If the salesperson is not asking the right questions, he or she will not know whether the value they offer through their solution is valuable to the prospect. To make matters worse, many salespeople struggle with the need to discuss budgets (money) with the prospect. Combine these two weaknesses and you have trouble.
Thull€™s team conducted informal research of about 10,000 sales and found buyers consistently paid a premium when the rep selling the product provided a clear definition of the problem and its cost, and provided a very clear plan for success. In these situations, says Thull, buyers had no motivation or desire to negotiate down the price because the value they were receiving was so crystal clear. The only way to get to this point is to shift your selling emphasis to diagnosing problems rather than presenting solutions.
Exactly. Salespeople who are able to diagnose first are able then to present the right value. One aspect of this approach that isn’t addressed in this article is the fact that you may not have a viable, valuable solution. Every salesperson must be willing to walk away from the “bad” deals – especially if uncontrolled discounting is the end result.
As Thull puts it, €œAlways be leaving.€ Always be ready to walk away from a deal. When that€™s your mindset and the customer says, €œIf we can€™t get another 5 percent we may not be able to go forward with this,€ you€™ll be ready to calmly reply, €œWell, that would be disappointing. But if that€™s the decision you need to make, let me know.€