How often do you ask yourself “How can we strengthen our customer relationships and win more deals?” This blog series explores selling value as the answer to that question. Although there are numerous things a sales leader can do to strengthen relationships and win more deals, creating value for the customer is essential. This blog series focuses on how value creation selling can differentiate your company in the marketplace and support your company in creating measurable and sustainable customer value. It also helps the customer makes decisions based on criteria beyond price that add business impact to their business.

So what does value creation mean and why is it important?

Value Creation Selling consists of:

• Understanding the influences impacting your customer’s business
• Understanding the initiatives your customer is adopting in response to these influences
• Bringing insights to your customers that will enable them to more effectively achieve their priority initiatives
• Delivering a uniquely valuable solution to your customer

The aim is to add value to the customer’s business in the form of competitive advantages, while also adding value to your sales organization in the form of increased customer loyalty, stronger relationships, higher win rates and increased deal sizes. Put another way, the aim of Value Creation Selling is to drive mutually beneficial value for both your sales organization and its customers.

Helping the customer go from its current state to its desired future state

In a study published by Forrester, 42% of buyers said they consider vendors to be strategic to their business when the vendor “focuses on helping me realize an end result.” This part of the research highlights why Value Creation Selling skills are so important when an organization is struggling to differentiate the value of its offering in the marketplace. The end result the buyers are referring to in the Forrester study is the accomplishment of their initiatives. It is about helping the customer go from its current state to its desired future state in a way that is both unique and valuable. When this is accomplished, the result is mutually beneficial value and a customer that considers the vendor strategic to their business.

What are the keys to Value Creation Selling? What skills do your salespeople need to improve to execute this approach? We have identified five keys to Value Creation Selling through our work with thousands of sales teams across the globe.  These keys are:

1. Understanding What the Customer Values Most
2. Solving the Customer’s Business Challenges
3. Differentiating the Value Created by Offering a Unique Perspective
4. Quantifying the Value Created
5. Communicating the Value Created and Delivered