Selling Value: A Teachable, Learnable Skill

You know sellers have to bring more than product expertise and good rapport to the conversation if you want to articulate why you’re different and better, or in other words, sell value.

To many, “selling value” is an abstract, complicated concept. But, in this edition of the Sales Evangelist podcast, Corporate Visions’ Tim Riesterer makes it simple and concrete by sharing concepts from his latest co-authored book, “The Three Value Conversations.”

Listen as Tim explains the three “value moments of truth,” and the key skills needed to win in each:

• Defeating the status quo and creating the buying vision
• Building an executive-level business case
• Executing value-based exchanges during negotiations to win larger, more profitable deals.

Enjoy the podcast!

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Corporate Visions Survey Reveals Top Challenges in B2B Sales Negotiations: Inability to Articulate Value and Lack of Faith in Solution Value

Survey Also Finds Almost Half of Companies Do Not Have a Formal Negotiation Skills Training Program to Give Sales Reps the Content and Skills Needed to Close More Profitable Deals

PLEASANTON, Calif., Dec. 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Corporate Visions, Inc., the leading marketing and sales messaging, content and skills training company, today announced results from a new survey polling more than 300 B2B marketers and salespeople about price negotiations. The data revealed the number one factor impacting margins is the inability of salespeople to articulate value. The second biggest problem respondents ranked was salespeople negotiating against themselves by not believing in their company’s price. Interestingly, despite these struggles and increasing pricing pressures, nearly half (45 percent) of companies polled admitted to not having a formal negotiation skills program to address this critical problem area.

“The newsflash here is that margin erosion isn’t just coming from customers putting pressure on price concessions,” said Tim Riesterer, chief strategy and marketing officer for Corporate Visions. “The survey indicates the primary problem is actually salespeople’s inability to create a perception of value and a lack of confidence to claim that value. It’s clear there’s also still a need for companies to provide formal negotiation skills training that’s not focused on the buyer’s tactics but rather, on the salesperson’s skills at capturing value.”

Additional noteworthy results from the survey include:

• Of those companies that do formal negotiations training, 48 percent of respondents said their company focuses on late-stage dealings to avoid excessive discounting and save profit margins during the purchasing and pricing step near the end of the buying cycle. The other 52 percent said they are focused on identifying and plugging potential value or margin leaks that take place throughout the entire complex, multi-buyer sales cycle.
• After the top two challenges: inability to articulate value (28 percent) and negotiating against themselves (21 percent) of respondents ranked the following additional negotiations problem areas:
  • Twenty percent of respondents believe giving away things of value without asking for anything of value in return is the biggest sales negotiation problem.
  • Fourteen percent said their reps are too quickly discounting to their lowest level of authority without regard for the psychology of concessions or a consistent company policy.
  • Nine percent believed the problem is waiting for the client to share budget and price instead of anchoring clients with a higher number.

“In today’s negotiations, buyers are in the high-power position because they have all the alternatives. Salespeople are in a low-power position because their alternatives are no deal or no margin, and those aren’t good alternatives,” said Riesterer. “As a result, companies need to make sure they help salespeople take more creative, counter-intuitive approaches to negotiations where they can actually use the low-power position to their advantage, as opposed to many skills training courses that recommend ways to regain power or retake control. Research shows efforts to raise power equality actually produce worse outcomes.”

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The Biggest Factor to Closing Deals?

Your customer conversations are defined by three “moments of truth”—three distinct but adjacent sales dialogues that reps need to master to win more profitable deals.

Is your team equipped to master them?

A Corporate Visions survey found that 85 percent of companies believe their team’s ability to articulate value messages is the single most critical factor to closing deals.

In this podcast, Corporate Visions’ Tim Riesterer details the three value conversations where your reps need to excel, demonstrating an ability to:

• Create Value by defeating the status quo and differentiating your solution.
• Elevate Value by building a business case that passes muster with executive buyers.
• Capture Value by protecting your pricing and expanding deal size.

Tim’s podcast, based on insights from his new book, “The Three Value Conversations,” appears in two segments below:

• To hear about defeating the status quo and differentiating your solution, check out part one: http://ift.tt/1NIVnnC

• To learn how to make a business case to executive buyers, check out part two: http://ift.tt/1Y5TPFL

Looking to dig deeper into these pivotal sales conversations? Purchase “The Three Value Conversations” here.

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Corporate Visions Names Jennifer Aaker and Juan Corsillo to Board of Directors

Social Psychologist, Author and Stanford University Graduate School of Business Professor Teams Up With Sales and Marketing Industry Veteran to Help Company Exceed Rapid Growth Goals

PLEASANTON, Calif. – December 9, 2015 – Corporate Visions, Inc., the leading marketing and sales messaging, content and skills training company, today announced the appointment of industry pioneers Jennifer Aaker, Ph.D. and Juan Corsillo to its board of directors. With more than 25 years of experience in their respective fields, both Aaker and Corsillo will help Corporate Visions exceed its next level of growth success in 2016 and beyond.

Currently the General Atlantic Professor of Marketing at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, Aaker is the co-author of the award-winning book “The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective and Powerful Ways to Use Social Media to Drive Social Change,” and has served on the advisory board of early-stage startups and companies from ADAY to Google X. With an extensive track record of driving growth and business sustainability for leading multi-billion dollar publicly traded companies in the financial and business services sectors, Corsillo recently retired from his role as SVP of marketing and sales at United Rentals, Inc.

“The board is proud to welcome Jennifer and Juan, whose collective knowledge in social psychology and B2B marketing and sales will be invaluable to our company’s overall strategy in the coming years,” said Paul Murphy, chairman of the board for Corporate Visions and partner at Sentinel Capital Partners. “There is no doubt they will help solidify our overall position as the market leader in providing the content, training and skills – all backed by irrefutable decision-making science – to help customers have more effective sales conversations.”

Acquired by Sentinel Capital Partners in May 2015, Corporate Visions strategically selected these new board appointments to further expand its global presence within the B2B sales and marketing space. Since 2010, Corporate Visions has grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 43 percent per year through both organic growth and four strategic acquisitions. The news also comes on the heels of last month’s appointment of three key additions to the executive team – Gloria Fan as CFO, Leo Hanna as EVP of international sales and Jennifer Zick as EVP of marketing.

“The appointment of both Jennifer and Juan further signifies the commitment we have as a company to the industry, our customers and our prospective clientele,” said Corporate Visions CEO Joe Terry. “We have very ambitious growth goals for 2016, and Jennifer and Juan’s expertise address critical areas that matter most to our business and will help propel us to the next level of expansion to serve our present and future world-class customers.”

As a social psychologist, Aaker’s research focuses on the psychology and rationale behind how people make use of time, money and happiness, and when and why those choices are associated with lasting value. She also empirically explores how small acts can create significant change and how those effects can be fueled by digital and social media. Noted for her early work on the dimensions of brand personality, Aaker’s current research is rooted in the psychology of choice and the shifting meaning of happiness. She also teaches courses at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). She is the recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award from the Society for Consumer Psychology and the Stanford Distinguished Teaching Award. Aaker earned a Ph.D. in marketing and psychology from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Art degree in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Corsillo is a seasoned sales executive with a proven track record of building world-class, high-performing and integrated sales and marketing organizations that drive industry-leading growth. Most recently in his role at United Rentals, Inc. – a position he held from 2010 to 2015 – he oversaw all sales-related activities at both the field and national levels, including pricing, sales operations, marketing and managed services offerings. Previously, Corsillo spent 17 years with the General Electric Company (GE Capital) in various capacities, where he held several senior commercial leadership roles, including chief commercial officer for GE Capital Solutions, CMO of U.S. equipment financing and SVP of sales operations of GE Capital Americas. Corsillo earned a Bachelor’s degree in finance with a minor in entrepreneurship from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.

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