“It can’t be generic. In fact, it must be stated in words that the buyers themselves use in talking about what they want and need from a company like yours.” pg 118 Value Propositions That Sell
I’ve been running a series of role play exercises for a client – the interesting part is the guy who is playing the part of a prospect is ACTUALLY the guy at their company who would buy what they sell.
In 4 sessions with a total of around 30 salespeople – ONLY ONE used “the prospect’s” words to ask a follow-up question. Everyone else talked about value in terms of how their company views it.
Sure you can say it was role-play and that isn’t how salespeople really talk.
Perhaps you’d even challenge that word choice doesn’t matter.
Here is the thing – if you don’t use your prospect / customer language when you talk about value, it’s like shouting letters from the alphabet into a megaphone and expecting the people listening to figure out the words you’re trying to say.
why use “mission critical” when your prospects and customers say “tier 1” in their conversations?
why say “nodes” if your audience says “student connections”?
It’s up to us, as salespeople, to make our prospects and customers feel comfortable – to believe we understand their world – see us as solving their problems…
what better way than to use the words they use to describe them?
This week I challenge you to write down the words your prospects and customers use to describe the problems they face.
Of course the next step will be to craft question strings with blanks or … at the end to make it easy for you to insert THEIR words in your question.
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