What Your Sales Team Needs to Know

If I gave my clients a “Please stop talking” button, they’d use it somewhere after the 37th time I told them to keep their value prop front and center. We all know it’s important… or do we?

After all, your value prop isn’t what you think makes your offer remarkable. It’s how it impacts your ideal client. It’s the story of your brand and the difference you make.

That said, I know many owners with a decent grip on their value proposition (and how to communicate it), but their sales remain stalled. Why does that happen?

Here's a problem I always see with the business owners I work with: they expect their sales team to read their product descriptions and just KNOW how to sell that product.

And then they're surprised when their sales team produces inconsistent results.

Why Your Sales Team Isn’t Getting It

Navigating complex sales of “big-ticket” items represents a strategic activity just as much as a sales activity. 

As the business owner or leader, you have this big, overarching view of your company: who you are, what you do, where you're going, etc. Your value proposition is (or should be) an integrated part of your view of the business. You’re building something to create value for your customers.

Your sales team has a much narrower view of their next sale. If they’re good at what they do, they have a somewhat wider view of things - and if they're worth their salt, they're hungry to close the sale they’re working on and move on to the next one.  It’s why you have them on your team.

So, big ideas like your value proposition? They don't always intuitively know what it is, let alone HOW to leverage it in a sale.

As a result, every salesperson has their own script – their own take on the product's most winning features. And when you listen in? They can often miss the mark. No wonder results can be so inconsistent!

The Direction They Need to Win

This is what you need to do: you have to tell them HOW to communicate the value proposition of your company AND of the offer. 

Show them the context of exactly why the offer in their hand exists. It’s like showing them the matching puzzle piece to the one they’ve been holding. This is where their offer fits in the world.

Personally, I tell our clients that a purposeful, well-developed messaging strategy for your direct sales force should support every big-ticket item you sell.

This is a collaborative strategy, where we sit with executive leaders and salespeople to discuss questions like:

• How does this product change our customers' lives? 
• What "superpowers" does this product give to our customers?
• Why should our customers buy from us? 
• What do we provide that they can’t get somewhere else?

And here's the best part:

If everyone is out there with the same message, now you can actually TEST that value proposition and see if it's winning your business—as opposed to your team going out with no clear strategy. 

And if everyone's sales are hurting from the new value prop-centric message they're putting out, then you know what's wrong—and what needs to change. (And just a hint – it’s usually not the sales team’s fault. It’s a strategic question your offer needs to answer.)

So, whether you’re a business owner or a VP of Sales or Marketing, you can take your sales team to the next level by providing a clear, potent value proposition for them to leverage.

In fact, refining your messaging with your salespeople could be the most strategic use of your time...

Building Success (and Redundancy)

One more note that I would be remiss to gloss over – I work with a fair number of businesses who struggle with achieving consistent results from their sales talent. You might have a rainmaker or two who drives your growth for a time, but flight risk is very real. There’s always someone willing to pay more for a proven performer.  And then what’s left isn’t as intuitive or productive.

The long-term answer isn’t outbidding for top sales talent. It’s developing a razor-sharp value proposition that upgrades ALL your sales efforts. I’ve worked with hundreds of salespeople. I know for a fact that an average to a decent salesperson, equipped with a strong value proposition, could be all you need to drive growth again.

Ask yourself:

• Do my salespeople have a clear understanding of their offer’s value proposition?
• Do their outcomes reflect a compelling messaging strategy?
• Do we understand the requirements to bridge the gap between marketing and sales?

Here to Help

If you think a guided, strategic training experience like this would help you get your revenue “unstuck,” let’s grab 30 minutes together. We’ve been doing this for business between $2M and $20M in revenue for the last 20 years.

With our program, we’ll help identify where your revenue is getting “clogged” and exactly what to do to get it flowing again. Sound good? Let’s chat.

Schedule a Call with Jose