‘Twas the January after Christmas, and we were feeling the loss

There was wailing and crying—especially the boss

We’d lost Santa’s business the year before

The resulting financials were quite the eyesore

Our arch-nemesis had beaten us, we couldn’t believe

Apparently, they had some new tricks up their sleeve

We had offered deep discounts, we offered services for free

We believed the business was still ours, we popped champagne corks with glee

In my opinion, the term “Value Selling” is in very real danger of taking on the moniker of the latest fad in B2B selling.  And therefore is at risk of simply becoming another in a long line of sales buzzwords such as “partners”, “what keeps you up at night”, etc.  This is really unfortunate, for I believe selling and delivering value is the only true differentiator. Sadly, this is not just my view as I’ve heard it stated a number of times by my buying clients.

The basic issue is that the salesperson will clearly state during the sale that they are there to provide “value” to the customer and, in many cases, will go through the steps with the customer to try and understand what is of value to them. Less often, the proposal from the salesperson will also propose delivering value to the customer (versus a laundry list of products, services and pricing). When well positioned, this will most likely lead to a sale. You are probably thinking “so far, so good… what’s the problem here?”  Winning deals is not such a bad outcome. And you are certainly correct – at least for the short term.