A plane guy walks into a car company… By Steve
Waterhouse
Ok, it’s a bad start to a joke, but Ford’s hiring of
a Boeing executive as CEO is representative of one of
the biggest problems facing sales professionals today.
There was a time when senior management was comprised of
people who had grown up in that business and had a deep
understanding and love of it. Those people were wowed by
your latest widget or version and instantly saw the
value you brought to their company.
Today, more and more companies are run by people with
experience gained in other businesses. The lack the
depth of knowledge to instantly see your value and they
are hardly wowed by your latest stuff. They know
business and only focus on the bottom line.
What does this mean to us?
It means you must be able to make a bottom-line case
for your offerings. You must be able to paint these
people a picture of the value you bring that makes it
clear they will see the ROI they want in the time-frame
they need.
Go back to school.
If you only learned about the features and benefits
of your product or service, you are ill-prepared to sell
in this market. It’s time to go back and study your
offering from a strictly value-based perspective. Even
if you already use value-selling, it’s time to sharpen
your tools.
Here’s your homework…
Go through every aspect of your offering and ask
yourself this simple question, “Exactly how will it
affect the client’s bottom line?” When I say ‘exactly’,
I mean in dollars and cents. You must be able to explain
how much money the client will make buy buying from you.
Unfortunately, white papers developed by your marketing
department are often discounted by the prospect. It’s
your analysis of the ROI based on the client’s actual
number that they want to hear.
Alan Mulally, the new CEO of Ford, may not know cars,
but he knows how to read a P & L. If you want to sell
this breed of CEO, you need to know how your offering
will make his bottom line shine!
Have a great week and keep selling,
Steve Waterhouse
Steve Waterhouse is Principal and Founder of Waterhouse
Group (www.waterhousegroup.com), a sales consulting and
training company that helps companies dramatically
increase their sales. He can be reached at
1-800-57-LEARN or
info@waterhousegroup.com.
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