by: Peter Lawless

The secret of selling is the art of value visualization. A natural sales person will lead the buyer through a series of structured questions, whereby the buyer will actually “see” what the product will enable them to do. The Sales person then will encourage the prospect to put their own value on that capability.

In the early days of selling, sales people were taught to discuss their product’s features and emphasize those features that distinguished them from the competition. As the art of selling matured, sales people were then taught to emphasize the benefits of their products — in other words what their products did for their customers.

“Help your customers realize the Value that they will Gain from buying your product”

Today’s the buzz words are all about solution selling and consultative selling. Sales people are asked to look from the buyer’s perspective and match their needs accordingly. This is a huge step from the early days of feature pushing, but I firmly believe they need to go one step further.

The good news about this, for business owners who do not have formal sales training, is that this magic step is actually common sense. The secret to generating a prospect who will willingly become a buyer is to get them to define, in their own terminology, the value of having your product.

OK, so how do we do that? We go back to first principles, the reason why you started your company. You probably saw a gap in the market, felt you could create a product or service to plug that gap, did some market research, found there was a need – and hey presto, you created a company to make, market and sell that product.

So what was that need? What did people really want? If they got your product what did that enable them to do? Could they easily put a value on it?

If the answer is yes to the last question, you need to ensure that your product’s cost is less than the value they put on it. Why? Because then buying it for them is good value.

So the real secret to sales success is to help your customers realize the Value that they will Gain from buying your product.

And just when you thought that was enough – there’s more! The final two things you need to fix in your customer’s mind are;

When they need to have it

What the downside of not having it is

Once your sales person has managed to do all of that, you know what? They won’t be coming to you asking for discounts. The customer understands the Value they are getting, and besides, what good sales person is going to ask you to reduce their commission by giving away revenue they don’t have to.

Remember, encourage your prospects to see what they could really do if they were using your product, and then put a value on it.

Let me leave you with one question to ponder. Why does a Porsche 4X4 cost €130,000 more than a Hyundai 4X4 – does it cost that much more to make, is it that much better, and is it worth it? It is truly amazing the value some people put on image – but then that’s visual.

This article was written by Peter Lawless, founder of 3R Sales and Marketing – http://www.3r.ie. For previous articles like this, visit 3R’s Articles. Alternatively, subscribe to Success our free monthly Information Bulletin with sales and marketing articles.