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Selling to Value
The New Standard for Sales Discovery

I'm David Yesford, Senior Vice President of Wilson Learning, and I'd like to talk to you about Sell to Value.

Many people ask me the question, "What's the difference between Needs-Based Selling and Sell to Value." It's about focus.

In Needs-Based Selling the focus is on the customer's problem and how your product or service responds to that problem. That's necessary, but not sufficient.

Sell to Value goes further. Sell to Value is about how the customer creates value, and then how you respond with your product and services to help the customer create that value.

Of course, salespeople need a new set of skills.
- First, they need to come into the coversation understanding value creation as their mindset. How does the customer create value?
- Second, you need to understand the business of the business. How does your customer create value?
- And then you need to have deep discovery skills to understand value creation for your customer.

In the past, salepeople could focus on the features and benefits of their products, the things that Marketing and R&D told them were important. And that was enough. In fact, in many industries, it still is enough to be competitive.

Most organizations, however, have adopted that needs-based approach. So in order to differentiate yourself you need to step up to a sell to value approach. Or at least have that in your bag.

Of course many customers may come to you with an immediate or urgent need or requirement that you can respond to quickly with your product or service. But in many other situations you need to do something more. In fact, if you respond simply with a needs-based approach, you're in parity with everybody else. Simply responding to the stated needs of the customer offers no differentiation.

If you want your salespeople to be a source of competitive advantage to your organization, if you need to get market share away from your competition, if you want to build long-term, lasting relationships with your customers, then you need to take a sell to value approach.