More than 90% of sales employees in B2B SaaS companies face the challenge of value management and value selling. A Value Management survey conducted in 2020 found that 82% of B2B SaaS companies customers ask for value tools, beyond what the business is already offering. More than 90% of sales employees in these companies face the challenge of value management and value selling.
Let’s get some facts straight – all your customers are getting bombarded with sales pitches from different companies in various ways and forms, every day and all the time!
The businesses that stand out in this chaos are the ones who flip over their sales script from “sell, sell, sell” to “care for and serve the customer”. The secret formula is Value Based Selling!
Value added selling is all about shifting your buyer’s focus from the cost of your product to the short-term and long-term impact it will create for them. Let’s dive in and begin by properly understanding what value selling means.
Let’s first understand the actual meaning of ‘Value Selling’
Let’s say you’re an IT service provider. How would you define the value of the services you’re providing? Reports state that a network outage can cause a downtime of up to $300,000 per hour for a business.
As long as a business doesn’t have to get in touch with their IT service provider, they cannot determine the real value of their IT provider. The answer to the question earlier is simple – the value is the financial benefit of avoiding an outage for your prospective customer, depending on the size of their company and the impact of the said outage.
Value based selling focuses on creating value and a set of real benefits for your potential customers throughout the marketing and sales cycle. This involves sales personnel adopting a consultative approach to create value for the customer through their product or service, resulting in a positive impact on their purchase decision.
Value selling is more than a sales tactic. Value added selling essentially involves putting the needs and pain points of your customers at the forefront of all your business decisions. You should be able to sell real life value for your target market with your product or service.
Value Selling as an approach is for sure a tedious one, but the scale of benefits and the ROI makes it totally worth the time, money and effort.
- Build trust among your potential customers, and fast!
- Close bigger and better deals, quicker, and with higher efficiency
- Boost your customer retention and CLV
New research has shown that 87% high-growth businesses have adopted an end-to-end value based selling approach for their processes and operations.
How is value selling different from you selling your product features?
There is a stark difference between selling the value of your product and selling the standout features of your product. It’s not about telling your customers what your product is capable of doing, but it’s how your product can address their uncatered pain points and struggles. By combining your product features and your product value, you can offer your target customers with an actionable solution to their very real problems.
Your customers may know what your product can do, but what they need to know is what your product can do for them!
Is value selling the same as solution selling?
The answer here is No! Confusing solution selling with value selling is a common mistake many businesses make.
Before getting into the explanation, let’s take a look at the statements below and identify what best describes value based selling.
- Determining what your target customer is spending on account of a problem they’re facing vs the cost of using your product to solve that problem
- Determining how your product can your target customer solve a specific problem and what are the benefits they will receive from using the product
Statement number 1 here is Value Selling and focuses on creating a measurable financial value for your customer. While statement number 2 focuses on selling your product’s solutions.
Value Selling works for one simple reason – It helps your target audience to overcome their fear of something new or the fear of change. A well-defined value proposition statement followed by value selling, gives them a clear visual of what the end result of using your product is going to be and eliminates fear of the unknown!
The Benefits of Value Selling
Trusting long-term relationships and customer retention
Selling the value of your product or service, instead of the features, can help brands showcase that they care about their customer’s journey and are dedicated to ease their hardships. This will help you gain your customer’s trust and create a long standing relationship with your brand and business.
Personalize the customer experience
Talking about your product’s value can give your brand an edge over your competitors. Your prospective customers should be able to see how your product can cater to their specific industry needs and address their specific set of challenges.
Justify the cost to your customers
When your target customers are able to clearly see and understand the value your product offers, you will be better equipped to justify the price you ask them to pay. If they are able to see the measurable benefits of your product, they will be less hesitant to shy away from investing in your product.
Why is Value Selling Beneficial for your B2B SaaS Business?
B2B SaaS businesses typically sell features and functionalities with their products. However, are your customers really looking for some features? Effective value added selling for B2B SaaS products focuses on how their proposed solution is going to solve their customer’s problems and add value to their existing situation.
- Builds stronger, trusting, and long-term customer relationships
- Creates a positive impact on the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
- Help builds a product that the customer needs
- Eases change management in prospective customers
The Value Selling Framework
Value Selling on Financial Benefits
Financial value is one of the primary ways to determine the value of your brand. The financial benefits your product can provide is a rock solid way to create an effective product value. Simply answer the questions – Will your product help your customers make money? Will your product help your customers save money?
Being able to look at the numbers and the revenue you can generate through every prospective customer and how it can be maximized while minimizing your operations cost, can help you build a compelling value proposition design.
Presenting multiple case studies of how your product has helped generate profitable numbers for your clients and impact their financial strength is an excellent way to move forward.
Value Selling on Qualitative Benefits
Interestingly, value based selling is not always about the numbers. Addressing the qualitative benefits to your customers is a big part of value added selling. This is based on your understanding of your potential customer’s pain points and their needs & expectations.
Does your product or service make their lives easier? Does it offer convenience or efficiency? These are the benefits your business is expected to showcase, doing which, you can create an intriguing value proposition statement for your target customers.
Value Selling on Differentiation
How well does your brand stand out from the crowd? How does your product differentiate itself from your competitors’ products? Value added selling based on differentiation is one of the most effective ways to successful marketing and sales.
If your product’s value has the capability to align with your customer’s expectations in ways that no other company can offer, you’re much closer to the finish line in the never ending rat race.
Value Selling on Risk Management & Security
Stress of unpredictability and possible risks is an effective motivator that can push your product value upwards. Staying ahead of direct security threats or changing industry trends is what your potential customers might probably be looking for.
Identifying and managing the customer’s fears and vulnerabilities is an unbeatable value proposition marketing.
The 2023 Rule-Book of Value Based Selling
Create a unique value proposition statement
Your value proposition design should always be at the core of your marketing and sales strategy. The unique proposition of your product or service is what differentiates you from your competitors and makes your brand stand out in an otherwise crowded marketplace. Your employees and everybody associated with your brand should know the distinguishing factor of your brand.
Strategic content marketing plays a key role in building and communicating the value proposition statement of your product and acquisition of quality customers and helps SaaS businesses communicate an unbeatable value proposition.
Define and understand your target market and their business
Defining and understanding your customer’s business needs is pertinent to a value based selling approach. Conduct a thorough market research to understand their needs, expectations, and pain points. This will give you a fresh insight into the value that your prospective customers are actually looking for.
Listen actively and identify their dire needs
You may have done your market research and defined your audience, but actively listening to your prospective customers is a big part of value selling. Engage with your market and listen to their actual problems, their day-to-day issues, things that will create a change in their daily life, and you can contribute to creating that change.
Educate & inform first, sell later
Informing and educating your potential customers about your brand, product, and value is the first important step that could lead to a sale. Educate your customers about how they could overcome specific problems, how others have overcome these problems, and what are the current & expected industry trends that will support the management of these problems. When you educate your customers about their problems and its potential solution, you’re essentially educating them about your product as the solution without making it sound like a sales pitch that only focuses on the product instead of the customer’s needs.
Build a relevant pitch
Your product may have the capability of solving a variety of problems and delivering a variety of solutions. However, an effective pitch would only be the one that addresses the problem faced by the customer in front of you. It is imperative to recognize these specific pain points of your customers and build a pitch that talks about solving those problems or adding value in those areas. Your customers need to know how your product or your brand is going to improve their existing situation.
Effective value added selling is identifying which selling points should become a part of your value proposition marketing and which selling points can be skipped.
Create a brand that’s approachable
Create a brand that’s approachable and easy to engage with. Be open, engage more, educate more, ask more questions, answer more queries, and provide more solutions. A product that restricts itself to what it is going to deliver without processing what the market’s dire need is or questions they may have about your product, is an ineffective value proposition design.
Add value
Your product or service should ideally add at least one type of value to your prospective customers
- Value of making money
- Value of saving money
- Value of eliminating risk
- Value of delivering improvement
Top Examples of Successful Value Selling
Weebly
(Image Source: www.weebly.com)
The value proposition marketing by Weebly was pretty straightforward. You can build and grow a long-term business website that looks good, performs well, all without spending any money! To stand out from the competition,
- They focus on easy- to-use
- They focus on the ability to grow with the business
- They focus on delivering visually appealing templates
- They offer upgrades to be able to grow the website with the business without having to look for a new website hosting service
Shopify
(Image Source: www.shopify.com)
Shopify’s value proposition design is based on being a comprehensive and flexible e-commerce platform that can help businesses sell anything online, without depending on multiple service providers.
- They tell their customers that Shopify can help you build, run, and grow your e-commerce business.
- They support their claims through highly credible social proof statements, creating a sense of trust among its prospective customers.
Wrapping Up!
Value-based selling stands as a game changing approach for B2B SaaS businesses to drive long-term success and efficiency. By focusing on the unique needs and desired outcomes of each prospect, companies can shift the conversation from mere product features to the tangible value their solutions can deliver. Thorough research, strategic alignment of offerings with customer goals, and effective communication of the expected ROI, businesses can foster trust, build long-term relationships, and differentiate themselves in a crowded market.
The goal of value selling is not only to enhance customer satisfaction, but also to maximize revenue and strengthen brand loyalty over time. As B2B SaaS businesses navigate the evolving landscape, embracing value selling as a core operations, marketing, and sales principle will undoubtedly enable them to thrive in an ever-evolving business world.
