How to Sell Without a Unique Selling Proposition Measure

It's important to know the business impact of what you sell. This goes without saying how much more a difference this will make. It shows how your prospective clients decide when choosing your products or services. However, many companies just don't quantify the true value proposition the business delivers through its products or services. And sometimes, quantifying it seems nearly impossible.

There's an argument, however, that if there aren't any metrics to measure the strength of a value proposition, your business is already losing out.

Everyone's been here. For years, many companies focus their resources on jumpstarting new product sales. And during this process, not many have ever quantified what's the value proposition on offer. They're often too busy with new strategies. Trying to find one that would work better than the one before.

But here's the gap. When the going got tough, good hard data was lacking. 

Although that may be the case, it didn't stop new clients and did not discourage new prospects to identify that a company was a good fit for their organisation.

We found that good hard data although important does not necessarily mean better sales prospects. And the common factor found was that there were commonalities in the strategies used by various companies to help prospects to feel more confident when engaging in a new product or service:

1. Talk the talk

Start by talking like a businessperson. Rather than giving exact figures or percentages, there's an emphasis in prospecting for new client conversations to go along these lines:

1. Product launch vs achieving the projected sales result
2. The critical need to shorten time-to-revenue
3. High costs of sales rep downtime prepping for presentations and proposals
4. Lost of opportunity
5. The inconsistent message being delivered to channel partners and customers

These are value propositions which are extremely attractive to senior sales leaders and it has led to many profitable transactions. These show competency as you've just quoted business terminology to which they can relate.

2. Use industry stats

It isn't easy and sometimes nearly impossible to measure the value of your proposition. If there's a time when specific data is required, you can lean on and off industry statistics.

The idea and perspective of these "outside experts" give you more credibility. For example here are examples:

CSO Insights found that organisations with random or informal approaches to sales coaching had significantly lower quota attainment and win rates.

Consultants do this very often. This can be a great proof of sources for the need for your product or service in the market.

3. Engage Your Customers in the Measuring Process

Think about how you might demonstrate your value with your upcoming sales prospects. Don't just talk about how fun your engagement is, but focus on the client's business objectives for lead generation. You should jump in early on. Talk to buyers about what to measure and how your company can do it. Some examples of easy metrics for tracking include:

1. Who received the product/service
2. Does the seller have an appointment
3. What happens when a new sale has been made
4. What is the initial value of the sale
5. What is the lifetime value of the client

This helps customers to know if their investment has been worthwhile. These will also lead to future success stories which you can leverage for future prospective sales engagement.

Start now because these efforts will have huge paybacks for you.

4. Collective Wisdom

The last way to clarify your value proposition is actually relatively easy and right where you least expect it to be. Brainstorm with your colleagues. The collective wisdom and experience of your peers will provide a broader view on the value you are offering to your customer.

It would be good to review marketing materials and think about what ways you can pique their interest and stoke excitement in their hearts.

1. Here are some questions you can use during your discussion:
2. What problems do you think we solve?
3. Does any of these problems also affect other parts of the company?
4. How does our solution impact our customer's bottom line?
5. Is there a positive impact our solution has brought to our clients?

Conclusion

If you're struggling with the above and still remain stuck, consider setting you and your team's mindset in the following. Keep asking each other, "so what?".

1. So what if it's inefficient
2. So what if communication has been improved?
3. So what if we reduced the turnaround time by 2 days?

Keep asking "so what?" over and over again. It'll only help you to get much closer to the real value of what you bring to your potential customers.

This is an internal analysis. But beware, it can be dangerous. Don't take it to the letter because no matter what outside validation always takes more precedence. Also, don't just think of your solution in isolation because you're much too close to it to discover what problems or values your company is offering without help.

Posted in: