MODERN SELLING
Mars ; and of making lives better in the community . Yet services can be hard to understand and define , making them difficult for us to sell .
Professor Valerie Zeithaml of Texas A & M University noted that professional services exist on the “ extreme intangibility ” end of the tangibility spectrum , and that the “ product ” of a service is often the result of many years of specialised study and training . As a result , clients who lack this knowledge often have difficulty evaluating service products .
Enter competitive tendering . Since the 1980s this system of buying has grown quickly , and now most contracts of any size and value are transacted through bids and tenders . In 2014-15 , one of Australia ’ s largest buyers – the Federal government – spent $ 59.447 billion buying goods and services through Austender , and issued 69,236 supplier contracts .
The competitive tendering system is particularly challenging for people who sell services . Many services – including health and human services , large-scale enterprise services , and professional services – are complex and time-consuming to execute .
Unfortunately , this also makes them complex and time-consuming to explain . In competitive tenders , we are under constant pressure to get straight into unpacking our methodologies and implementation plans ( what and how ). This often comes at the expense of explaining the problem we are solving ( why ), which is the main reason why a customer actually needs us in the first place . Understanding value is the key to selling services .
Value is like a snowflake – no two commercial value propositions are ever exactly the same . This is because every customer has different hopes , dreams , goals and problems to solve . Yet like a snowflake , commercial value has a six-sided structure , and it is quite beautiful when you can see it up close . Each of us buys with our gut , head and heart . Within each of these drivers , there is a left-brained ( quantifiable ) and right-brained ( qualitative ) attribute for value . When professionals with a complex offering can explain it according to these attributes , it helps us to talk about what we do so that people want to buy it .
Firstly , visceral ( or gut ) value attributes include cost and risk . Author and neuroendocrinologist Dr Deepak Chopra says that gut feelings are “ every cell in our body making a decision ”. Buying decisions are often triggered by fear . According to a 2015 IBM survey of 5,200 CEOs , 54 % said their biggest fear is “ being Uberised ” – disrupted by a competitor outside their industry . We can help our customers to protect against these fears .
Secondly , buyers value logical attributes like productivity and reduced complexity . Logic is driven by the head , and most of us have way too much going on in there to be logical about all of it . This phenomenon is known as cognitive load , and we can play a role in reducing this burden for our customers .
Finally , buyers value aspirational attributes like quality and connectivity . Buyers want to make an impact and create a legacy . Understanding this , we can set our customers on a different – smarter and better – path than they would be able to choose on their own .
Robyn Haydon is the author of ‘ Value : How to talk about what you do so customers want to buy it ’ www . robynhaydon . com
November 2016 ModernBusiness 15