Value sales does NOT mean ingenuine sales

By Mark LaRosa on August 7th, 2008

Wow… I have to say that I never expected to have so many people ask me about my post on not logging into the software.     My wife, in particular, lambasted me in promoting some sort of used car salesman technique as if I’m trying to pull something over on the customer.

I would NEVER promote selling a customer that doesn’t need your product.  I believe that you always sell the right solution to customers – always be genuine.  You first should identify if the customer needs the product.  If he/she does in your eyes, and you honestly feel that you can bring about an improvement in their life/business/etc.  then you can and should continue.

What I’m proposing from that point on, is a technique to get them to understand your point of view on how you can help them understand that best.  My technique is to sell to the value of the product rather that focusing on the features of your product in detail.  (and to be more clear on my never logging into the software post – what I was referring to was that salespeople that have deep understanding of their product can very easily fall back into the feature sale rather than the value sale.  If you have the luxury of using sales engineers to deal with details, then the salesperson is FORCED to sell on value because that is all they know in detail).   

Lets use an example of selling cars, since my wife brought it up…   If we had walked into the dealership and the first thing that we were shown was all the buttons and options on the audio/tv/DVD system, we would have gone running.  The interface is so complex and comprehensive, that it probably would scare most people away.  However, what we were sold on was the value of that system: entertaining the kids on long trips, multiple screens so less fighting because each kid can watch their own thing, an outlet for charging the portable gaming systems, integrated phone, navigation, etc.  Because we bought the value and saw how it could change our lives, we were not focusing on HOW to do it in the interface.  The fact that it is complex is just something we deal with because we want the value that it brings us… and honestly… after 3 months using the system, we have it down pat and its not really as complex as we originally thought.

I hope this clears it up a little more for anyone thinking that I was promoting some sort of ingenuine sale.