How Do I Create An Irresistible Value Message/Blindside Challenge?

Module:   How to do Cold Outreach                               Session Number: 11


Session Title: How Do I Create An Irresistible Value Message/Blindside Challenge?


Session Overview: 

We don’t want our clients to make a purchase decision based only on price. We must assume that our competition will be sharing similar information with our clients, so it’s important for you to create an irresistible value message that will help you distinguish yourself from your competitors. 

Training Principle:

The strategies we share today come from a book called The Three Value Conversations: How to Create, Elevate, and Capture Customer Value at Every Stage of the Long-Lead Sale. The blindside challenge will be the meat of your value message to your customers. The following three strategies will help you create an irresistible value proposition. If your company doesn’t have access to tons of data, that’s ok. You’ll still have options to create one.  


Step 1:

Study regulatory changes.

The fact that you’re interacting with this course suggests that you’re working to stay on top of your industry by doing research, listening to podcasts, and reading books. 

Make sure you stay aware of your own industry changes as well as your client’s industry changes. This requires that you subscribe to magazines or blogs that your clients might be reading. You must know where your clients get their information so you can engage with the same sources. 

If your client is in the technology space, read technology magazines about the tech space and the SAS industry and the changes that are happening within that space. You’ll be better able to help your clients and help yourself as you create business cases when you meet with your clients.

If your clients operate in the agriculture industry, consider how the trade war with China might be impacting their business. Perhaps your clients don’t even truly understand how the trade war is affecting their efforts. If your client does business with the government, does your client understand the impacts of a government shutdown when it happens?  

If you come into a meeting and share a meaningful example about my operations and a possible solution, that presentation will stand out far more than just a presentation of features and benefits. 

Give your client information about something that he may not be considering. 


Step 2:

 Highlight bandaid issues. 

Identify the problems that your client has learned to live with and the problems he tends to undervalue. 

When I was working in document management, one of my clients had a process that required papers to be passed from office to office for the necessary approvals and signatures. In order to purchase new equipment, the IT guy needed approval from his boss, and then from the CFO, and then from accounting. 

Doesn’t sound that hard except that you and I know that sometimes people go on vacation. And invoices end up with coffee stains on them. Maybe the invoice doesn’t get paid on time and the delay causes the company to miss out on a discount. The existing system was what the client knew and the client had learned to live with it. They even built in additional costs to compensate for the problem.

We offered them a better solution. 

We took that same invoice and put it into a digital system that could route it to the right individuals without the use of email because emails often get lost or ignored. The appropriate people could electronically sign the document and there were even urgency mechanisms built into the system. At any point in time, the people involved could easily see where the document was in the process. 

For some organizations, the problem they learn to live with is mediocre sales performance. Many companies believe they can hire good salespeople without providing training for those sellers. Those sellers come on board with old tactics and dated experiences from other industries, and they fail to perform well. Some companies have a revolving door of sellers who are unable to perform at the expected level. 

The truth is that you’ll never grow your business if you aren’t willing to help your people succeed. Educate them. Strengthen them. Give them value. When you do, they’ll believe in you and your company and they’ll perform well. 


Step 3:

Identify problems the client doesn’t see. 

Each of these steps is impactful, but this might be the most powerful method because you’re uncovering a problem the client doesn’t even know exists. I love this one. 

Consider the topic of sales training again. Many companies send their sellers to a brief training session with the intention that they’ll learn to be effective sellers. The reality is that sales education is a process and sellers can’t possibly learn everything they need to know within a few days. 

Effective sales training must happen over a period of time in the form of online programs, sales coaching, and ongoing education. That may sound self-serving, as though we’re simply trying to get more money from our clients, but we have data that demonstrates the lasting impact of ongoing training. The sellers retain more of what they learn which benefits the client. 

The client must have something sustainable that will build lasting habits, which is why we’ve established a 12-week sales training program. We want sellers to learn and then implement and then learn with the group and reinforce what they learn. 

Look at current customers your company has helped or case studies you might have access to. If you don’t have case studies, look at the problems in your CRM or your pipeline. Look at the problem the client mentioned in the initial conversation. 

  • What problem did you solve for the client?
  • How was it affecting the client’s business?
  • Did the client know of the problem initially?
  • What other benefits did the client discover as a result of your solution?

When I did document management, we sold our paperless system to clients who were able to store their data, but then we discovered how they were using our system. They developed workarounds that allowed them to move invoices to different folders because they had a problem of invoices sitting for too long. 

As a result, the company created a solution that improved workflow. The company created a blindside challenge that they were able to carry to other clients as well. We were able to point out places companies were losing money as a result of the poor workflow and then help them understand the results. 

In the case of sales training, we might interview the client to discover the benefits he sees from sales training. Perhaps the company’s close rate climbed to 60 percent from 40 percent, which led to a growth in revenue. Maybe the reps are staying with the company longer with allowed the company to expand. 

One of the blind side challenges might be to help the company evaluate its demonstrations to determine whether they are contributing to the losses. 


Bonus step:

Use story to explain what you do. 

If I go to a networking event and people ask me what I do, I say something like this:

“You know that feeling you get when you create a proposal and you’ve done everything you can for the client but after the proposal, the client still doesn’t buy from you? We offer a solution to solve that problem.”

Talk about the problem you solve. Connect with some of their previous experiences and offer a solution to the problems they are facing. 

Tasks to Implement:

  1. Evaluate your top clients to determine what initial problems they had. 
  2. Figure out the upsells you’ve provided over time and the reason the client was willing to purchase those add ons. 
  3. Note the added benefits that resulted even if they weren’t part of the customer’s initial reason for purchasing. 
  4. Those additional benefits can become your blind side challenges for your other customers.

  

Session Recap: 

In order to stand out from other sellers who are pursuing the same clients you are, you must create an irresistible value message. Developing a blind side value proposition will position you as an ally for your prospects and it will establish trust. Study industry developments that impact your prospects. Uncover band-aid problems that the organization has simply learned to live with. Reveal problems the client doesn’t even recognize by studying your other clients’ history and results. Then, use story to help prospects understand the problems you solve and how you can help them specifically. 


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