The meeting ended with smiles and handshakes but next day you learned truth. You had lost deal.

What went wrong?

One possibility is your proposal. Most of us are pretty good at selling. We do it face to face. We do it over phone. Some of us are even fairly talented at selling in letters. But how many of us sell in our proposals?

Sell in proposals? You might have heard me lecture that proposals should contain no surprises and that they should summarize agreement that was already reached by parties. So where does selling come in? It comes in with hidden buyer….

Every sales person is trained to map out customers’ buying process and make sure they know every person who will be influencing this deal. You ask all right questions of all right people. You double check what one person says against others. You ask other reps to tell you who was involved in their deals. You’re covered.

NOT!

The hidden buyer lurks in any large company and many small ones. This is person who has given team you are working with “full authority” to cut deal and write check. This person said that there was no reason to get them involved. They are master delegators. Except when they change their mind or when team decides that they would like this person to “give it one last look” before they sign. At that moment, only sales person in room is your proposal.

How scared are you now?

Pull out one of your recent proposals and let’s see what’s in there. If it is to stand on it’s own, it must contain following sections:

Summary of need – The customer must be confident that you understand their problem. They must know that you are both starting from same place and that you understand how they got there so you won’t dig them deeper into same hole. This section says, “I heard you, I understood you, I believe you” to customer.

1. Statement of Objectives

The customer wants to know what you are going to do and that it is same list that you proposed in your meetings. They want a check list to measure your work against and something that begins to justify your price. This is first concrete evidence that client can see that gives them hope in a better future.

2. Task List or Methodologies

This is path to future and shows client how you will connect their need with their objectives. It is answer to question, “What are you planning to do” and needs to be clear enough to help client build faith in your ability to deliver.

3. Measures of Success

How will they know when you have succeeded? How will they measure improvement? What can they see, count, measure? The easier it is for client to see result, easier it is to sell deal. If you can’t measure it, you can’t sell it.

4. Relevant Experience

If you have not experienced a drop in sales recently, you might choose to skip this issue. On other hand, if you miss it, you just might find yourself competing with those who learned this technique.

Two things happen in a down market that directly affect every sales professional.

1. Total spending is cut irrationally

2. Buying power moves up organization

The cure for each of these problems is found in Value Selling. Simple features and benefits selling is designed to satisfy needs when client is buying but it's tough to use them with a client who isn't.

Total spending is cut irrationally

In down markets, you will often hear clients complain about their company's 10% across-the-board budget cuts. They explain it to you as if it actually made sense and then use if as an excuse for not buying. It's safe to say that any company that cuts 10% out of every department has failed to take time to analyze their spending needs properly. After all, if you were in a boat that was 10% over weight, would you toss 10% of everything overboard? If you did, engine would stop running and hull would begin to leak!

Your job is to help your clients examine their businesses in such a way that they realize that your offering will actually add money (Value) to their bottom line. Only when we do, will they feel justified in reallocating money to buy your product or service.

There is one major caveat to Value Selling: Your offering must, in some way, actually be able to help client earn or save more than it costs.

Step 1: Develop your case

Imagine you are CEO of your client's company. Even in a downturn, you would gladly give a trip to Aruba to any employee who could show you how to significantly increase sales or cut costs. Your job is to make a case that would earn that trip. Here's how to do it:

a. Understand client's business - You must investigate your client's business as if you were going to buy it. You need to know their "critical numbers", those statistics that every manager watches every day. You need to know how your offering fits into their business and what affect it could have on critical numbers.