Selling smart

Today in the economic space, growth in business is either slowed, threatened or has even stopped for some organisations. There are indeed, challenging economic, political and social factors responsible for these developments but the marketplace is not saturated. The consumer is still buying what he needs and also patronising service providers. The consumer is however, prioritizing and diligently checking through his scale of preference and ensuring that choices match his “size of pocket” (SOP).

In this column, we want to examine some smart selling moves but first, let us establish the context. For clarity, we will adopt the “vanguard’s model” in systems thinking as our guide. Questions: does the business have an expansive grasp of today’s challenges? Do we understand the reality “on ground” and are businesses delivering the value they should from their tools, activities, time, energy, skills and resources? Are the various efforts adding up? Are we doing it well? Is the chosen strategy creating the “fit”? Is the value chain driving desirable resilience, competitive advantage and sustainability?

Let us critically look at the decision-making process in the face of these obvious challenges. Leaders should ask themselves whether they are using available and valuable insights to optimize decision-making processes. Are leaders taking smart decisions on opportunity cost, comparative advantage and relevant but fundamental economic principles? The summary of the answers to these questions is that smart underlying principle must be focused on comparative advantage that will lead to mutually beneficial gains.

The leader should critically consider his answers to the next questions. Are you out of touch with the outcomes the customer is expecting from your business? Are you proactive in determining the beneficial values of your products or services? How will you honestly determine and define your “breakthrough solutions”? Are you sure of the relevance of the new and seemingly popular technologies you have adopted? Have you recently conducted a diagnostic to gain insight into customer needs? Do you understand your customers?

Recently published estimates have proved that product and service innovations to meet present challenges have obviously defied logic. The failure rate is 40 to 75 percent. You need to know that customers are the “Most innovative designers” of products and services.

Let me shock you with this new reality. Solution selling is not as effective as it used to be. Insight selling is now the “end-of-solution” selling strategy. It is also described as “outcome selling”, growth marketing dynamic and (I fondly refer to this smart strategy) as strategic partnerships. Insight selling is proactive. It takes “smart” care of emerging customer demands and “unrecognized” needs. It offers useful insight about what the customer should do (either in B2C or B2B). It intelligently coaches the customer on how to buy and even, what to buy. It is obviously smarter than identifying what needs the customer seek to address and the traditional conversation on the “hook” in order to provide solutions.

Insight sales experts are value-focused salespeople. They understand what the customer wants to accomplish and how their organisations’ products and services can add value or be of highly beneficial service to the customer.

They create the “win-win valve zone” and intelligently provide information on how values differentiate organizations. Their language of interaction is the “customer outcome language”. They not only understand the customer, but they also know his world. Customer’s outcomes are positive results and positive consequences. Not just benefits, specifications, performance criteria and competitive comparisons. Like I said earlier, the insight sales personnel, communicate in the language of “outcomes” and intelligently walk the customer through the process. It is not just the usual value that is transactional but outcomes that have impact and produce “business values”. They truly understand the customer, his aspirations and his business.

The fundamental principle that drives the modus operandi of insight selling is smartly converting organisations’ capabilities and differentiating features of products and services into the “customer outcome language”. The leader turns the features and benefits of his organizations’ unique products and services into outcomes. The customers may be individuals, businesses and governments at all levels. Businesses work with these insights in the customers’ world.

There are many advantages in the smart insight selling. They include: customers’ insights shape the organization’s products and services development, value and price. These give exclusivities as well as customer engagement and loyalty for life. You sell at mutually agreed prices and high customer preference.

Organisations need a “win-win” value zone to effectively and fully maximize the benefits of insight selling. Now, we are back to the basics: employees or specifically, frontline employees. As I have always repeated in this column, employee experience is intrinsically linked to customer experience. Remember our formula EX=CX and UX (user experience). Happy and engaged employees will deliver happy and engaged customers. The result of this is (as we all know), a successful business that guarantees phenomenal growth and profitability on a sustainable basis.

Frontline employees must therefore “own” workplace values. They must “live” organisation’s values by aligning with these values and turning them into beneficial actions.

Let me conclude with my usual prescription that the leader of the business must be on top of adaptive challenges such as, experimentation, innovative efforts and of course, behavioral and attitudinal change. The leader must keep his employees in the game (not partially in the game) through the process of continuous engagement. He must always grow their capacity to learn and think creatively. He must be responsible for creating valuable sense of safety and connection. He must build personal relationships with team members. The employees must be convinced that they are valued and that the organization genuinely cares about them. They must always be encouraged to deliver their best work and best ideas.

From the smart business perspective, it is critical that the leader must intentionally build a sense of belonging and relatedness for and with every member of his team.

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