There's a lot of talk about how to get higher prices for your products and services. Most of it revolves around matching buyer needs to products and services, becoming more consultative, solution selling and building better brand awareness. All of which will have varying degrees of success depending on the underlying foundation driving them.
In a B2B complex sale, I'd stipulate that it's a matter of providing expertise that helps buyers solve their highest-priority needs by helping them think strategically about how to realistically achieve the outcomes they want.
Consider the following:
- Buyers are busier than ever. Most executives currently have more work on their desks than they can complete in the next week - even if nothing else was added to the pile. [Take a look at yours...]
- Problems are becoming more complex as are the environments and ecosystems where they exist. This makes solving them more challenging.
- People don't have time to think strategically. They're running too fast handling their primary job responsibilities.
- Change is scary. Status quo has political benefits that are hard to overcome.
- What people don't know they don't know can cause all kinds of chaos as they're asked to solve problems outside their core expertise areas.
And finally, almost all products are commodities - yours is not their only choice. This is what causes people to think price is the driving factor and assign that reason to why they lose deals. Sometimes this is true, but more often I've seen price have impact when value is underplayed. That's what puts companies in a commodity position.
People will pay for value that has meaning for them.
This means that you have to know your customers really, really well. You need to know about their high priority issues. Not just what they are but which parts are important to the buyer - from their perspective, not yours.
You need to help them think about the issue. Point out considerations, unforseen pitfalls and futures they may not have thought through. You also need to take the fear out of the journey. Show them how they'll get the outcome they want. Up their comfort zone.
Basically it means attaining trusted advisor status. These are the folks buyers pay to work with. Their focus is primarily on the expertise, secondarily on the product. It's definitely about the relationship. And that requires personalized relevance.
I know, easier said than done. But is is definitely doable. And, yes. It makes a big difference in how the deal gets done without the focus on price.
