DV Week Part 4-The Emotional Customer

We close out the DV week with a final delineation of the real prospect who will value your DV.  The person who will respond to it is the Emotional Customer.  Unfortunately, most salespeople hunt down the Logical Customer and end up in a sales black hole.

Terry Slattery, an expert on DV, walked us through this important aspect of leveraging your DV while prospecting.

Let's first define the Logical Customer:

• Easy to find but hard to close
• Price Sensitive
• Limited performance metrics
• May have a vested interest in not changing
• Often isolated from the consequences of delay or undervaluing your DV

The Logical Customer can be lurking anywhere inside of an organization, but some common locations are purchasing, IT, HR among others.  These contacts fit the above description and will work hard to "commoditize" your Differentiating Value.  If your salesperson ends up stuck in this area, you have to guide them out of that hole.

Let's focus on where your salesperson should be focusing - the Emotional Customer:

• Has zero interest in your stuff
• Feels the pain and consequences of not having your DV
• Gets the bill for the pain
• Easy to close
• Usually can tell the Logical Customer what to do

See the difference?  The question is how do you find them?

Qualifying.

Your team has to know what their DV is, have it translated into the prospect's world and then have to ask the right questions to find the Emotional Customer.

If you need help implementing Revenue as a System, we can help.

DV Week Part 2-Direct Your DV Towards the Emotional Decision Maker

We all make decisions emotionally and later justify them intellectually.  This is a fact of human nature.  We look to our emotional decision making to finalize our purchases.  Granted, few people need to access this area of their brain to buy a gallon of milk.  However, think of a significant purchase you recently made.  You decided based on how the item or service made you feel.  Later, you used the logic centers of your brain to rationalize/support why it was a good decision.  If your salespeople are aware of this distinction, they have a distinct advantage over your competition.

The emotional decision maker is the person who suffers the consequences of life without your solution.  They pay a price for not having your DV, whether it be slower times to market, higher failure rates, lower productivity, missed ship dates...it could be almost any painful outcome.

Here is the advantage for your salespeople:  Emotional decision makers are usually harder to find, easier to close, not as price sensitive, and can typically tell the technical buyer what to do.

Now that you know this, you must direct your DV messages towards the emotional decision maker.

Here are some guidelines:

• Define what matters to the customer - There is no point in highlighting benefits a customer doesn't care about.
• Be unique and demonstrably better - If the competition offers the same item, whatever that feature/service/product is, then that item is not your competitive advantage.
• Be specific and measurable - If you can't be specific and/or measurable, you sound like every other competitor.  Get rid of the fluff.

If you need assistance in defining and directing your Differentiating Value, we are here to help.