He recounted driving to the customer with the sales person. The sales person was briefing Paul on the account and proudly stated he had just sold a system to this customer. Paul responded with the question, “What did you sell it for?” The sales person quickly responded, “Oh, about $10 million.”
Paul expressed his frustration to us, stating the sales person’s response, while typical, was devastating to him. Paul wanted to know “What did you sell the system for?” That is, How is the customer going to use it? What value will they get from it? How will it help them serve their customers? How will it help them grow their business? The sale was a transaction to this sales person, the individual had no idea what the customer was doing, just that the customer had paid IBM $10 million to do it.
Unfortunately, over 20 years later, times haven’t changed—particularly in many high technology sales. Too often, I speak with sales people, managers, and executives about what they sell. I ask the question, “What Are You Selling It For?” Too often, the response has nothing to do with satisfying a customer need or creating value for them. It is about beating a competitor, often at the lowest price, and winning a transaction.
This isn’t just the problem of sales, to many of our businesses are focused on the product. Many lose focus on what the product/service does for the customer, the value it creates for them.
As business leaders and professionals, as sales professionals, as people seeking to server our customers, growing our mutual businesses, the question Paul Rizzo posed over 20 years ago, is what we must ask ourselves every day:
“What did you sell that for?”
If we can’t come up with the answer, we will fail to succeed.
Well as simple as the answer is as complex, residual and unfortunately logical as well, not to generalize but i would give the fault to company’s motivation moral…haven’t anyone noticed what the majority of senior management have been motivating their sales team with…a new yacht or a bigger one…a house in Spain or in France alps, motivation over I don’t know how many years has been transferred from pride, brand name loyalty to customers and company into a self-centred message. In that sense the answer is very logical and again self centred, how many calls have we participated in to congratulate a colleague for a deal and haven’t heard the comment (when are you getting the Ferrari??)