How to Be a Better B2B Salesperson by Creating Greater Value

There are a lot of ideas about how to be a better B2B salesperson. For example, you could prospect more, something most people would recommend. You might also improve by working on your interpersonal skills, especially your ability to communicate.

Sales organizations and salespeople haven't yet adjusted to the sales experience B2B buyers and decision-makers need in the current business landscape. This is why sales is broken. To be a better salesperson, you must learn to create greater value in the sales conversation for your prospective client. By creating greater value, you create a preference to buy from you and you win more deals. This is the secret of successful salespeople.

What follows here is a blueprint for how to be a better salesperson.

Understanding Customer Pain Points

There are two categories of customer pain points. Most sales teams are taught to elicit the first type of pain points, which stem from the problems and challenges their potential customer's experience. Identifying and addressing these problems and pain points will make you an average salesperson.

Pain points in the second category are invisible to most salespeople, especially those using a legacy approach. Let's call these buying pain points. Instead of using the client’s problems and challenges to introduce your products and services, focus on addressing the pain points that will help you create greater value than other salespeople. When clients find value in meeting with you, you are a better salesperson.

We call this facilitating the buyer's journey. Buyers are doing research and trying to decide what to buy without a salesperson’s help. They are also experiencing buyer's remorse and failing to produce the results they need. In addition to this, they are plagued by uncertainty. Successful salespeople start by helping the client with the decisions they will need to make to improve their results.

Using Information Disparity to Create Value

Most B2B sales organizations use a legacy approach to the sales process. In this outdated process, salespeople begin their meeting with a monologue about the history of their company and their highly charismatic CEO, a picture of their largest clients’ logos, and an overview of their products and services. All of this information is on their company website, and it's likely that the poor, suffering client has seen it. Not only does this approach not offer the client any new or useful information, but it also projects a transactional B2B approach.

One of the first things you need to do is remove the legacy approach and replace it with a sales conversation that accomplishes two outcomes. First, you want to establish yourself as an expert and authority in your field. Second, you need to immediately create value for your clients by giving them new information. To become a better sales rep, you need to provide your contacts with information they don't already possess. The major strategy in a modern sales approach is built on information disparity, meaning you have valuable information that the client does not, and you deliver this to them in a sales meeting.

You sell every day, but your buyer rarely buys what you sell. This gives you greater knowledge and experience about the problems and options your prospective clients are facing. Your experience provides you with the insights that help your contacts understand the decisions they need to make, what factors they need to consider, and what they will need to change to improve their strategic outcomes.

Ways to Create Greater Value

1. Recognize the forces that impact your client's results: You must know the forces that harm your client's results and their impact. Know this without having to ask your client. Instead, teach them about the external forces and the internal decisions and actions that cause clients like them to fail.
2. Explain the negative consequences of the status quo: There are some people in sales who no longer believe that salespeople should compel change. A better salesperson helps their client recognize that sticking with the status quo will mean they will continue to experience negative consequences. It can help to share how this has harmed other companies.
3. Ask questions that educate decision-makers: The average salesperson asks questions to learn about things they should already know. A better salesperson asks questions to help the client to learn something about themselves, their company, or the root cause of their poor results.
4. Update your contact's assumptions: Your clients work from a set of assumptions that are often outdated or incorrect. By updating your clients’ assumptions, you help them recognize the reality of their circumstances.
5. Clarify the nature of your client's mistakes: The reason the terms problems and pain points don't cover the reasons why clients struggle is because many clients make mistakes without recognizing it. When you identify the client’s poor assumptions and their mistakes, you can help them understand the impact they have on their business.
6. Facilitate the buyer's journey: Every day you help your clients and prospects make decisions that improve their results. You walk them through a set of conversations and commitments that leads to better results, giving you a vantage point you can share with your B2B buyers to help them ensure they make good decisions for their business. This creates greater value in the sales conversation.
7. Share your clients’ experiences: In your daily work, you see what works and what doesn't. This is why your contacts ask you what other companies are doing and what is working. It's also why they go to conferences and events where they can learn something helpful. Sharing information about how your other clients are finding success and improving their results is central to the value-creation strategies that can set you apart.

Being a great B2B salesperson starts with creating greater value for your clients. This involves understanding their needs, taking the time to build relationships, and providing information that is otherwise unavailable to them. With these steps in place, you make the most of every sale and create customer loyalty.

Action Plan to Create Greater Value

1. Research your prospects: Take the time to research your prospects and get to know them, their industry, and any unique challenges they may face. This will help you stay informed of their needs and better understand how you can be of service.
2. Create personalized solutions: Based on what you learn from your research, develop an approach that enables decision-making. Make sure your approach is designed to create greater value for your contacts.
3. Focus on building relationships: Rather than simply pitching your product or service, focus on building relationships with your prospects by providing counsel, advice, and recommendations that improve their results and make you a better salesperson.