January 15, 2025 • 41 mins
Unlock the secrets to transforming your sales strategy with Bruce Scheer and Darrin Fleming as they delve into the Total Value Experience (TVE). Learn how to effectively focus on delivering customer value and improve your business outcomes.
- Shift from selling technology features to focusing on customer business outcomes.
- Utilize value tools like ROI calculators and value enablement techniques.
- Overcome barriers such as product-centric perspectives and ineffective tools.
- Implement a framework to build trust, understand needs, and deliver insights.
- Enhance win rates, shorten deal cycles, and minimize discounting with value-led selling.
00:00 Buyers prefer sales-free experiences, demanding trusted advisors.
05:24 Total value experience: cumulative buyer interaction quality.
07:09 Buyers' remorse common post-contract; ensure first impact.
11:12 Current tools hinder enhancing buyer value experience.
14:30 Barriers, low value, and discount pressure hinder.
19:29 Right tools align seller-buyer around buyer's KPIs.
21:58 Four phases for delivering high-value experiences.
23:50 Lead with value to enhance win rate.
29:00 Providing tools for sellers to understand buyers.
33:11 Playbooks, training, and coaching for sales success.
36:57 Developing strategic alignment and sales self-sufficiency.
38:31 Creating a higher total value experience discussed.
41:02 Total value experience transforms the buyer journey.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the ValuePro Show, where value pros get value
ready.
Hi. My name is Bruce Scheer, the host of the ValuePro Show.
In this episode, we are talking with Darren Fleming, fellow
cofounder at valuepros.i0 and a seasoned expert
in applying value based strategies and driving go to market success.
(00:25):
Together, we'll explore the transformative concept of the
total value experience. It's designed to elevate
how businesses deliver value at every critical touch point
from initial interactions to post sales engagement.
This episode is packed with insights into creating value centric
strategies that enhance win rates, shorten deal cycles,
(00:48):
and foster lasting customer relationships. Let's dive
in. Well, Darren, I'm so excited to talk about this new
bid idea that we have that, for 2025, which we're gonna be
talking about so much, but it's called total value
experience. Shortened, it's TVE. So really
excited to get into it with you on this. Yeah. No. It's
(01:11):
I'm really excited too because I think that it's definitely got some
game changing concepts and ideas that I think we're gonna go through here.
Absolutely. Well, let let's jump in. And, I got
this technique from corporate visions, but it's called grabbers. And I've
got 3 key data points that I just think are
gonna rock everybody's world here. And I believe these data
(01:34):
points still hold true right now as we roll into 2025.
75, 87, and then 59.
So according to Gartner, 75%
of b to b buyers prefer to have a sales
free experience. I'm gonna pause for effect
(01:54):
right now. Pause. That is a
big, big ass number. Okay. So the second number,
87. 87% of b to b
buyers expect to be interacting
with a trusted adviser, and that comes from
salesforce.com, their their state of the the
(02:16):
union report that they put out each year. And then
finally, Darren, 59. 59%
of of the influence, the impact on a buying decision,
a bold buying decision. 59%
of the impact comes from the go to market experience that
(02:37):
buyer has with the organization and the marketers and
sellers involved with that experience. Only
41% of the decision making is
impacted by the offering itself. And, again, this is b to
b, but 59% of the impact
comes from that go to market experience. And this is a pretty
(02:59):
credible source as well coming from SBI.
So, Darren, these three key, data points, you
know, just to summarize, 75% of buyers don't wanna interact
with sales. They prefer a sales free experience by, as according to
Gartner study, a credible source. That's horrifying.
(03:19):
If the seller makes it through, 87% of buyers
expect to be dealing with a trusted adviser, which they're normally
not, just to be honest. And then 59%
of the, of the experience, that's
59% of the impact on that buying decision.
And given that 75% stat, we know that
(03:42):
many b to b organizations are completely dropping
the ball and turn to that go to market buying
experience. So over to you, Darren. Any reflections?
Oh, absolutely. I mean, I'm just thinking about this. I went back
through just thinking about over the last year or 2. My own experience,
my own buying experience for especially software products,
(04:05):
fast products and different types of things. And I don't
remember the last time I talked to a sales rep. I I literally
don't remember. And the when I did go back to
the years, it wasn't necessarily a positive buying experience. It was it
didn't help enhance the buying experience. It it actually was more
negative. I typically do an evaluate online myself, so
(04:27):
I totally totally resemble exactly
exactly those numbers. And, you know, if I do talk to someone, it's because I
wanna understand how it's gonna help me, help my business. I don't wanna demo the
product. I don't wanna, you know, a, a feature function
discussion. So it absolutely matches my own experience.
Yep. Yep. So, Houston, we've got a problem. We
(04:49):
we literally really do, and, this needs to get
fixed. This is our the reason we exist, Darren,
in, you know, in in this partnership for valuepros.io.
We've got a big problem in the overall buying experience, the go to
market experience in the b to b world, and, we're we're we're sold out for
trying to fix it. So that brings forward our big
(05:12):
idea, what we're calling a total value
experience. And so for people watching this on YouTube, they
can see, you know, we've got a an arrow from left to right.
1 the left, start of the arrow is is labeled as
low. On the right side, it's labeled as high.
And then labeling the overarching arrow is total
(05:35):
value experience. And so this is something
that, you and I coined together with our other partner,
David, thinking about just how do we elevate
the overall experience. Now total value experience, just to provide
a definition, what that is is the cumulative
total value of all the the critical touch points
(05:58):
and interactions that your organization's having with that buyer,
both up to the point of, signing a contract
and beyond making sure that buyer receives value,
the impact that has been promised. And, so we
see that as the total value experience. So it's not just the offering
value. It's actually even the value of all those critical interactions.
(06:22):
And, and and the whole emphasis here is how do we
increase the total value experience so we can improve our win
rates and and help those buyers buy at the end of the day.
Yeah. Absolutely. And it and, you hit on a key point there that
it's more than just during the buying experience. It's also getting all the
way to value delivery by giving that, I was actually just having a conversation
(06:46):
with a a customer the other day, and they actually recognized
that their selling process ends when they get a
signed contract. And then they've had cases where 3 months
later, they go back and say, oh, we haven't talked to the customer since then.
And, you know, they they've kinda dropped the ball on making sure that the
customer actually starts to get value from what what they sold them.
(07:09):
Yeah. I'm I'm telling you. And even
immediately after signing contracts, I've seen some new data from Gartner.
I'll do another episode on that, but most buyers
right now in 2025 have buyers' remorse
even sometimes days after signing the contract. You know? Because
they're they're still overwhelmed and lost and don't know they don't see the
(07:32):
value. So and, there's another episode that
we did with Chuck Macaulay, and, I love that
episode where we're talking about first impact.
Hanging in there with the buyer, setting up, you know, follow
on meetings to make sure you're measuring
for and delivering on that promise of first impact and the value
(07:54):
associated with that. So some some of our clients are
building that functionality literally into their product and so the the
customer can see it real time, but many aren't. And and
so you need to, you know, orchestrate a meeting
where where you prove the efficacy of that solution
and and the associated value with that solution. So, yeah, just
(08:16):
big issues here. So just to move the
story along here, we see 3 key barriers
that, get in the way of providing your
buyers, your customers with a high total value
experience. These barriers keep the value experience
very low. The first one's perspectives. The second
(08:39):
one is tools, and then the third barrier
is disciplines. So what I'd like to do next is
just break down each one of these, each one of these barriers. And
and what's holding go to market teams and revenue
teams back from providing this high total
value experience to their customers. So as it relates to
(09:01):
perspectives, Darren, what I see and you see
very often is just a product
centric perspective where,
the marketing team and the sellers, they show
up answering the wrong question. And the
question we'd call it, why us? They're answering the question
(09:23):
of why choose us, our product, over
competitive alternatives. And let me tell you what's awesome about our
product. It's got this feature. It's got this feature. It's got this feature.
It it does this type of function, and here's some of the
benefit associated with this. But isn't it a great product? Don't you need
it? That's the focus both from the marketing side
(09:45):
off the go to any website. You're gonna see product center content.
And then if you and and then sellers, especially junior sellers,
will show up with a product centric point of view.
Again, answering the wrong question. Why us
versus why change? And what's the urgency of
(10:05):
that change? So just the wrong orientation, product
centric orientation. Any thoughts, Darren? Yeah. No.
Absolutely. I I remember years ago when we first started working together,
we were working with a customer, and we were reviewing some of their
content and their website. And I remember you specifically saying, and this was
probably 15 years ago, and or maybe even more.
(10:27):
You said, it's all about you, baby. And it was their whole
content was about their product, their offering, their service,
nothing about the customer, nothing about what the customer is doing. And,
unfortunately, that's still true today for most organizations. So
Absolutely. Focusing on the customer first is a critical
critical element. Yep. Yep. And we'll move into that. But, you
(10:49):
know, just to agree, you know, the predominance of this product
centric approach, It's not resonating with the buyers.
It's not resonating with their contact. It's not talking about the
value that they're they're losing their cost of inaction.
It's not talking about the potential upside, the outcomes. It's
literally focused on on the stuff, which is a
(11:11):
dangerous place to be. So that's the first barrier perspectives. The second
one's tools. And so, you know, metaphorically, I think of
of a, you know, trying to put a square peg into a round
hole. And and that's how I see most tools
that are being afforded to, to the
buyers in in this world of of trying to
(11:33):
provide buyers a a a higher
total value experience. Most of the tools that the
sellers are using are almost even like a ball and chain. They're
kinda holding them back, or they or they, you know, they they don't
use them or don't want to use them, and they're very often
very internally oriented, like a CRM system, for example, or
(11:56):
a account development form, you know, that they need to fill out.
You know, just activity level
tools that don't translate into real
value for the buyers, for the buying experience. Any
thoughts, Darren? Yeah. No. I totally agree. I mean, I I think
that across most organization, most of the tools provided to sales
(12:18):
are more for internal management reporting and understanding of what's
going on. CRM tools are for management. They're not really, in most
cases, for the the sales, and it's certainly not about the customer
experience, which is kind of interesting because it's called customer relationship management. But
they typically are more focused on internal metrics than
internal things, forecasting tools, like you said, account development tools. It's
(12:41):
all about how is it impacting our business, not how is it gonna help our
customer make a buying decision. Absolutely. Yeah. And
and things are getting a little bit better. Gosh. 1 of our,
one of my former clients, gong.io, can really
jazz up a CRM system and make it more relevant. But
that's that's the exception, not the norm that we see. Now fine
(13:03):
the final barrier is disciplines. And,
you know, from our experience, we might see, you know,
high performers within an organization. Some of those sellers that
that, you know, that that do help their buyers see the value
and quantify the value, but it's random at the end of
the day. Random acts of value is what I might call it. And,
(13:26):
it does happen, but randomly and not and not often enough.
And, so those are the 3 key barriers. Any any other thoughts, Darren,
before we move on? No. I yeah. Totally agree. I mean, you'll
see spots. And even people who are good at it don't do it consistently.
I mean, you know, it's, you know, still it's easy to just slip back
into focusing on the product, focusing on the wrong things, you know,
(13:49):
and, not have the right discipline to really always be
customer centric, always be customer customer focused. Yep.
Yep. So it it's still Random Acts, etcetera. So so
these three barriers, perspectives, tools, and disciplines,
what's the cost of these barriers? Here here's what it's costing,
in terms of win rates. Right now, you know,
(14:11):
a vendor, if they're lucky, might be winning 2 out of 10 deals.
And, the unlucky ones are winning 1 out of 10 or
sometimes even lower than that. Rarely
would they win more than 2 out of the 10 deals, that they're
pursuing. So win rates are just in in a trash can
right now. And and, you know, these these barriers and the these
(14:34):
lack of discipline, lack of the right types of tools, and the product
centricity really do hold everything back and and end up
with very low win win rates. Secondly, deal cycles.
When the when the customer can't see and articulate the
value, let alone themselves, how do they go about selling,
you know, 10 plus people on the buying committee? You know?
(14:57):
And and, hence, you've got these proactive deal cycle,
sales cycles that, you know, 60 to 70%
of the time end in no deal at all. You know, just complete
inaction. And then finally, you you'll
know if you're providing a low total value experience because
there's gonna be more discounting pressure where where the buyers are
(15:19):
gonna go, I don't see the value, and you guys are charging too much. You
know, I I need some serious concessions here if we're gonna move forward.
So you're gonna have way more price pressure discounting
pressure. And then, for people watching this, I I do
have an unhappy smile face here. Emotionally,
this this is kind of a sucky situation. Everybody's losing. The buyer, the
(15:42):
buyer's unhappy. Sellers that are trying to serve the buyers are
unhappy. Leadership's unhappy because, you know,
things aren't moving forward in the right type of way. Everybody's kinda
losing in this low total value experience paradigm,
again, presented by these barriers. Any thoughts,
Darren? Yeah. No. It's I mean, I would just take the load cycles
(16:03):
or long deals deals cycles one step further, and I think you talked about it
a little bit, the indecision. It's, you know, the the dreaded no
decision, you know, where you still think you're chasing this deal, you still
are pursuing it. It's not lost yet, but you never get it over the goal
line. And the customer is frustrated at that point as well. The buyer's
frustrated because they can't get it approved or they can't get the budget
(16:25):
allocated or whatever. So it's not just long
deal cycles. It's wasted time chasing deals that are
never gonna close if you can't get a business case. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. Great great point. And,
yeah, I've got another, disheartening quote, but 92%
of buyers of technology solutions need a business
(16:47):
case. And, one of our affiliates for Darren and
I, he's former head of procurement for Levi Strauss and
also CDW. And he mentioned rare is the
occurrence where a seller comes in and helps with the business case,
you know, which which protects that sales cycle and
very often ends in inaction. No no deal for nobody.
(17:11):
So, we call this whole situation that, that we're
painting, we're calling it value disconnected because
there's typically great value there. It's just not
connected into that total value experience you're trying to deliver to
your customers. And, you know, sometimes we refer to that as the
value fog. Everybody's kinda lost. Nobody's seeing clearly. We,
(17:34):
but in this instance, we're calling it value disconnected.
So let's talk about a better way, Darren. Let's let's let's turn the corner
and talk about how things could be. So on the perspectives
barrier, the the the better perspective
to have is like a magnifying glass on
value. 1 of our affiliates out of London
(17:57):
loves to talk about value, and his definition of value
is value is a mystery to be solved
for. So if you think of Sherlock Holmes with a magnifying glass, you're
out there looking for the value, and you're working with your buyer
and and getting their point of view on where the value is gonna be. And
you're you're mutually shaping the value
(18:19):
proposition together solving for that mystery.
So that's, you know, on the perspective side. On the
tool side Well, so I've got I've got a point of
yeah. Just I've got a quick point. You know, around that that I it
just reminds me of back about the time we met. You know, Stephen Covey
kinda put it best in habit number 5 out of the 7 Habits
(18:42):
of Highly Effective People. Habit number 5, seek first to understand
and then to be understood, which then it's it's the same thing
applies and people still don't do it. Seek first to understand the customer and understand
their perspective and how it could create value and where their problems are.
That should be the first goal, not to have them understand what
you're trying to achieve you know, what you wanna sell to them. Absolutely.
(19:04):
Yeah. And there's a lot of chatter on LinkedIn, etcetera. Just
just how everybody falls down on discovery,
and it's just so critical to to listen. You can also
offer point of view. You can speak, and and and lead
the witness as long as the witness is led and believes in that.
So you you really it's this cocreation type thing that
(19:26):
you're trying to get into. And that's the second point. What helps in
doing this is having the right tools. And,
visually, I'm painting a picture of 2 smiling faces, one of
the revenue team, the other of the buyer, both
looking at KPIs. Whose KPIs? The
buyer's KPIs, obviously, you know, trying to see in their
(19:49):
universe, what are the metrics that you can you can manage
for and influence to help them get promoted, to help them get
the value that they're seeking. But, you know, having both the
seller and the buyer, on the same team
with with tools that help them figure that out.
And, again, most sellers don't have the tools, and and, you know, some of the
(20:12):
high performers try to whip things up on spreadsheets, etcetera. But,
you know, the we do believe there should be this more
external orientation, buyer centric orientation of
what tools can we provide that are really gonna support this total
value experience. So that's the second, barrier
there. Uh-huh, Darren? Yep. Absolutely. And it's and, you know, the more you can tie
(20:35):
it to business impact, the outcomes that the customer's gonna
see, and the more you can tie it to what are their overall objectives? What
are the priorities of the business? How are how is what you're gonna, how you
can help them gonna tie to what their executives are saying. These are our top
three priorities, making sure you understand because the more you can tie it to their
overall, executive priorities, the the better
(20:56):
chance you're gonna get of actually being able to, get funded.
Absolutely. The deal. Win win the deal. Absolutely
critical. Yep. No. I well put. And then
the on the third side, on the disciplines,
what we see is a much better way
is, having a set of disciplines that you
(21:19):
can follow to increase the consistency
of creating a high total value experience
for your customers as they're buying with you. And,
we offer a framework for that,
thinking about 4 phases where you really need consistency
to drive a higher total value experience. The first
(21:42):
phase of the relationship with that customer is building trust.
And and there's a number of disciplines around doing that. The
second phase is around understanding their needs, just like what
Darren was saying, you know, seek first to understand before
you're understood. You know, really
diving in with deep discovery, doing your homework first, of
(22:04):
course, but for diving in with deep discovery with your your your
buying champion and and different stakeholders to figure out where
what are their needs and where where's the potential value point.
So that's the second phase. The 3rd phase is deliver
delivering insights with with your buyer.
Where do we see the potential value? What's real? What might not be so
(22:27):
real? But figuring it out together and presenting
that, justifying that value, and
and quantifying for it. So that's the 3rd phase.
And then the 4th phase is, like Darren said, many,
you know, customer sellers, you know, they sign a contract and run,
you know, but but sticking around, making sure that that promise
(22:49):
is being delivered. Driving execution
is what we call that. So four key phases where you
need to have consistent behaviors
that are gonna, you know, result in this total value
experience, a very high total value experience.
Darren, comment. Yeah. No. Absolutely. It's all about, you know,
(23:12):
I you know, we taught a lot of people talk about becoming a trusted adviser,
everything else, it's all about helping the customer, you know, create value
for the customer. I mean, in the end, in a b to b setting, you're
selling money, you're selling money to your customers, so you need to understand how you're
gonna help their business perform better. And it actually goes to what we
named named this business, Value Pros. You're you need to become a
(23:33):
value professional. You need to become a value professional, helping the customer
understand value, identifying areas
of impact, and then taking it all the way through to actually delivering
value for the customers. And that's what being a value professional is all about. A
value pro. Love it. Love it.
Absolutely. So, the benefits when when you get this
(23:56):
right, you know, all those negative, metrics that I talked
about, you know, the low win rate, of course, you're gonna increase your win rate
when you lead with this value and and and provide a greater
total value experience. Your deal cycles, they'll be
shortened, and you'll know if it's go, no go way
faster when you're leading with value. Of course, if you lead with
(24:18):
value and help shape that value proposition in a very clear way, a
very credible way, very compelling way, then
discounting, you know, it might not go
away, but but it it, the buyer won't
have as much power over that when when when that's
really well stated, and, everybody understands
(24:39):
it. And then, also, everybody's having more fun.
And and, you know, when you're providing a greater total value experience,
your buyers love you more. Your sellers wanna stick around and have
more fun because they're kinda killing it now and and having a much
better selling and buying experience. The the
marketing team, they're enjoying life, you know, because they're creating better
(25:02):
content and seeing better results as a result of that. If you're a
leader, you're having more fun because, not only do you have a a a
happy revenue team, but you're hitting your financial targets.
So there's a lot of upside towards improving the
total value experience in what we've been talking about.
Any thoughts, Darren? Yeah. No. It's, absolutely. I mean, it's
(25:24):
it's all about, like I said, value pro and delivering delivering
value to customers, allowing, you know, helping cost helping your customers,
businesses perform better and make more money. And if that's where you focus,
everyone's happier. Everyone wins. Yeah. And I
would just give this, a label to this whole, you know,
desired state of creating a greater total value experience.
(25:47):
I'm calling it value energized, Darren. What one of my
keywords for 2025 is energized
energy. And, when when when you're leading with
value and helping to shape value, quantify value,
that's what I call value energized. Everybody's gonna be
more energized at the end of the day because because they could
(26:09):
see and understand that value. So critical.
Rather be value energized than value disconnected for sure.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, in terms of,
what are the key drivers then to making this happen to be value in you
know, how do we energize with value? What's needed?
(26:29):
So the first thing we would say is
value content. So if you wanna shift the perspective
from, you know, off of the product and onto the value,
How do you do that? It doesn't it doesn't just happen on its own.
Value content will lead the way. So you'll have a
value narrative, and and what Darren and I are doing with you right now is
(26:52):
a perfect example of this. We've got a narrative that we're
that we're sharing with you. Secondly, value studies.
You know, looking across a number of different customers and just
looking for pattern, where are they seeing the value, and
how can we swing back and write about that, communicate
about that, and and use that as a basis for
(27:14):
quantifying value, those studies, getting our
benchmarks from them, etcetera. And then value
stories. So, you know, client x, You know,
here's what their situation was before. After
we arrived, here's the type of metrics that they've been able to
to to really improve in their world. And then,
(27:36):
emotionally, here's what they have to say about it. So really
anchoring case study by case study so your
revenue team has more to, help them in
communicating that value perspective. Thoughts,
Darren? Yeah. No. Absolutely. And it's and obviously, we're focused
very much here on the selling, the buying process, the customer bought
(27:57):
buying experience, and everything. But this starts all the way back with product
management, and developing the right product, understanding the market,
understanding the needs of the customer, developing the right products, marketing,
communicating appropriately based on how it's gonna deliver value in
that value content, value narrative all the way through the sales on the
buying process with, the the message through the narratives
(28:20):
through the sales process. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Absolutely.
So that's on the value content side. So the the
the next key lever in making this happen
is putting together value tools for your revenue
team. You know, for, you know, these tools can sit off a a of a
website and and marketing might own those, or these
(28:43):
tools could be used directly with sellers and the buyers as as
part of that, you know, person to person type of
movement. But enabling your
your team with value tools so they can help to communicate
and quantify the potential value. So the the type to
tools that, you know, just for example, you know, preparation
(29:05):
tools. I know there's a lot of AI this and that out there,
but, you know, are you providing the right tools for
your sellers and marketers to truly
understand their target buyers so they can do a
better account based marketing or actually, you know,
prospecting and outreach and having direct
(29:27):
selling conversations. But showing up prepared,
showing up relevant. So, again, we I swing
back to that stat that 75% stat, and your own
experience, Darren, mine as well. We'd rather run from sales and
engage. But if if those sellers had the right tools, had the
right perspectives, showed up value ready, ready to
(29:48):
deliver insight that we'd appreciate, it'd be a a, you know,
perceived so much differently. So that's preparation types of
tools. We have one that we offer called value brief.
Secondly, assessments. You know, what are we talking
about here is what we're trying to answer in terms of why change.
You know, is this a little change, big change? You know, what's the delta?
(30:10):
What's that look like? Assessment tools can just be
brilliant in helping, the buying organization get their
head around the problem and the degree of change required
and also the outcome if they do change.
So having a solid assessment is wonderful,
in in that spirit. And and we've got another episode on this where
(30:34):
we did a deep dive on what constitutes there's different types of
assessments and what constitutes good versus bad, etcetera. I'd
encourage everyone to watch that episode on assessments.
And then thirdly, and this is, you know, an, of course,
type of thing, but you wanna have value calculators.
And there's different flavors of those, value calculators, ROI calculators,
(30:57):
TCO calculators. And, it's funny. Very
often, we'll talk to clients and and they'll say, oh, yeah. Yeah. We've got a
value calculator, and and we'll ask, hey. Could you show it to me? Give me
a minute. Dang. Okay. Good. Give me a few more
minutes. And and, you know, they, a, they can't find it. B, you know,
it's maybe some nasty spreadsheet that a financial analyst put together,
(31:19):
from the from the finance team who didn't really understand the customer's world,
etcetera, but whipped something up. That's not what what we're
talking about. We're talking about, you know, something that's concerted, really well
made, and something that people want to use.
Yeah. Absolutely. And it's as you said, value value assessments. And even
even if you can get it all the way to a benchmark assessment to say,
(31:41):
here's how here's how you compare. Here's the big rocks of
of things that we've seen across other customers,
other parts of the market. How do you compare, and what's the
value that you could create? And not jumping too quickly too. We see,
as Bruce said, we see a lot of people say, oh, we got an ROI
tool. We got a spreadsheet that we build the ROI business case that no one
(32:02):
uses. It was too complex, or it jumps too quickly
into trying to get to the ROI business case, which it's early
on, it's more about highlighting and demonstrating
where's the value, what are the problems, how much is it worth to solve this
problem before you try to get to the cost justified business case. That's
the last step. That's that's at the end of the process, not not too
(32:23):
early. So that's you know, if you jump too quickly to that, it can slow
down the process or turn off the customer.
Yeah. Yeah. Especially if it comes across as being very vendor cent
centric and product centric. Now we're trying to be customer centric
upfront and talk about, hey. What are we talking about here? What's what's the potential
value? And what's the potential cost of inaction? You
(32:45):
know, that if we don't move forward, what's the downside of this whole
thing? What are the risks associated with this? Having kind of a bigger
conversation, upfront. So that's the value
tools. That's the second key lever that's really gonna
help everybody move to a, you know, provide a a
greater total value experience. And then the 3rd key
(33:07):
lever is value enablement.
And what we mean by that is, you know, providing your team with with a
playbook on, you know you know, hey. You know, where
where's the go to market, strategy leading us? You know, what what
what segments? What what's our ideal client profile? What are
the personas we're targeting? And then, wrapping
(33:29):
around some of the content that we talked about. You know, what's our core central
narrative that we're gonna be talking to those buyers about,
and and where's the potential areas of value? Where's the
potential areas of risk if they don't change?
Having, you know, and then also within those
playbooks talking about how to use the tools that are being provided.
(33:52):
Just having everything wrapped up, just thinking about maybe a football
team analogy so everybody knows who's on 1st, 2nd, you know, who
who's doing what, when to be
successful in in in selling, the the
solution. So the playbooks is a key part of value
enablement. Secondly, training. You
(34:14):
know, many sellers, especially junior sellers, might
not have the level of business acumen, might be uncomfortable,
and so they need some support in having better
value based conversations, and and training
certainly is helpful in that. And then thirdly, coaching.
You know, coaching for managers. How can they be a do a
(34:37):
better job of helping their first line reports do do
a better job of, value selling, if you would, and having those
value conversations? And, how can they be
better managers in that process? So those are the
3 key levers that we see in driving
a higher total value experience. Again, value content,
(34:59):
value tools, and value enablement. Value content
helping to shift the perspective from product to value.
Value tools helping to, you know, break away from some of
the internal tools to using tools that are truly gonna drive a
better buying experience. And then value enablement,
which is gonna take care of that lack of disciplines, and
(35:21):
inconsistency of disciplines problem, through
through value enablement. Yeah.
Absolutely. And I, you know, I I mentioned Stephen Covey in 7 Habits
earlier, but when I think of value enablement, I think of, you know, the the
whole sharpen the saw, you know, that you're constantly trying to be better. You're trying
trying to become a value pro, trying to deliver value to customers
(35:43):
every day, and be focused on that as your number one priority.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well and then, you know, a a
bit of a punchline here in in our story. Value pros
dot I o, you know, the reason we're existing is to
help people have a greater total value experience,
provide a greater total value experience. And we
(36:06):
do bring together the value content, the value
tools, and value enablement. We've got capabilities
and and experience across all these three key levers
that our clients can leverage, you know, based on where they need
support. And, Darren, just a quick
one. We've done this type of work. This
(36:29):
isn't our our first rodeo. You can see both Darren and I. We've
been around the block and and worked with many organizations.
And, but, you know, we we've worked with some of the best of the
best. You know, we we, put together our overall program for Tableau
before they, had their IPO. Most all of our
clients, at Tableau are multimillionaires now.
(36:52):
They they kinda hit it big. SAP,
we've worked with them. They acquired a company called Success Factors, and we
did a bunch of work with them, you know, both on getting their
story straight with a value narrative and then, you know, playbook that
helps everybody understand, you know, you know, what's our go to
market strategy, and who are we focused on, and what are the
(37:15):
key personas, what's key messaging and talk tracked, etcetera.
And then how do we have that value conversation? Especially,
trying to enable more of the sellers to have more of the value
conversation versus constantly trying to get the attention of the
value engineering team? How could we enable
the sellers to be more self sufficient, at least up front,
(37:38):
to get the ball rolling before the value engineering team gets involved?
And then, Darren, do you wanna talk a little bit about Verizon?
Yeah. No. We've been working with Verizon for years on enabling their sales teams to
sell, you know, enterprise level, IT and
telecommunications solutions. And, you
know, change the way they sell it from, you know, selling the technology,
(38:01):
selling the features and functions. I mean, they're selling a platform. They're selling a
enablement set of enablement technologies and really focusing on what is
the customer trying to achieve, what what are they trying to solve for,
and how is the enterprise solution around telecommunication going
to enable them to achieve those business outcomes that they might not be able
to achieve otherwise. So very focused on the the whole value
(38:24):
value experience within
within their enterprise sales. Well,
Darren, this has been a great discussion. Why don't we just,
come up with a few concluding remarks? I guess
my big wish is, for this whole notion
of a total value experience. I'm
(38:46):
hoping that this dialogue was helpful to you in
thinking about how can you create and drive
for a a higher total value experience in
2025 with your clients. And, you know,
we offered several perspectives on that. Perspectives, we talked about
tools, we talked about disciplines, and we talked about some of the key levers
(39:08):
to try to improve that. So, my biggest wish is
you you got something out of that and and some ideas perhaps that maybe
where where you can put some emphasis to try to create
a a a a higher total value experience.
Darren, any thoughts you have? Yeah. No. It's I mean, and along
the same lines, you know, what I would say is wake up every morning if
(39:31):
you're, you know, customer facing, if you're on the revenue team for
or anyone in individual contributor, marketing sales, whatever it may
be, wake up every morning thinking about how am I gonna become
a value professional and deliver more values to our customers, both through
the buying process, through the interactions, and make sure that we're
enabling our customers to be better every day and make more money. If you can
(39:53):
do that, you're more likely to be successful than not.
Absolutely. Yeah. And then I'll for also the sales leaders
and revenue leaders, the CROs of the world watching this,
and and enlightened marketers, you know, it's time
to probably shift emphasis towards a value centric
strategy, especially if you have a high consideration solution.
(40:16):
And and, you know, you're not a 100% into the product led
growth strategy. Tableau, for example,
was, but they decided to shift their
strategy towards value where we got the opportunity to work
with them. You know, thinking about how do we land more, you
know, bigger deals, more enterprise deals. How do how do we move upstairs
(40:38):
into the executive offices to have those types of
selling conversations? So if that's part of your strategy as
well, we we yeah. Hopefully, this is useful, and we should talk.
But Darren, on that note, thanks, Darren, for your
contribution. This has been fun. Yeah. Same same year, and hopefully,
everyone got value out of it. Yeah. Take care, everyone.
(41:00):
Alright. Thanks. To wrap up, we dove deep into
the total value experience, a game changing approach to
creating meaningful, measurable value throughout the
buyer journey. For me, the most insightful takeaway
was the emphasis on breaking down barriers, perspectives,
tools, and disciplines that hold companies back from achieving
(41:22):
success. It's a powerful reminder that leading with value isn't
just a strategy, it's a commitment. If you enjoyed
this episode, please like like and subscribe to the ValuePro Show. And
if you're feeling kind, leave a review so others can find and enjoy it
too. Take care.
Welcome to the ValuePro Show, where value pros get value
ready.
Hi. My name is Bruce Scheer, the host of the ValuePro Show.
In this episode, we are talking with Darren Fleming, fellow
cofounder at valuepros.i0 and a seasoned expert
in applying value based strategies and driving go to market success.
(00:25):
Together, we'll explore the transformative concept of the
total value experience. It's designed to elevate
how businesses deliver value at every critical touch point
from initial interactions to post sales engagement.
This episode is packed with insights into creating value centric
strategies that enhance win rates, shorten deal cycles,
(00:48):
and foster lasting customer relationships. Let's dive
in. Well, Darren, I'm so excited to talk about this new
bid idea that we have that, for 2025, which we're gonna be
talking about so much, but it's called total value
experience. Shortened, it's TVE. So really
excited to get into it with you on this. Yeah. No. It's
(01:11):
I'm really excited too because I think that it's definitely got some
game changing concepts and ideas that I think we're gonna go through here.
Absolutely. Well, let let's jump in. And, I got
this technique from corporate visions, but it's called grabbers. And I've
got 3 key data points that I just think are
gonna rock everybody's world here. And I believe these data
(01:34):
points still hold true right now as we roll into 2025.
75, 87, and then 59.
So according to Gartner, 75%
of b to b buyers prefer to have a sales
free experience. I'm gonna pause for effect
(01:54):
right now. Pause. That is a
big, big ass number. Okay. So the second number,
87. 87% of b to b
buyers expect to be interacting
with a trusted adviser, and that comes from
salesforce.com, their their state of the the
(02:16):
union report that they put out each year. And then
finally, Darren, 59. 59%
of of the influence, the impact on a buying decision,
a bold buying decision. 59%
of the impact comes from the go to market experience that
(02:37):
buyer has with the organization and the marketers and
sellers involved with that experience. Only
41% of the decision making is
impacted by the offering itself. And, again, this is b to
b, but 59% of the impact
comes from that go to market experience. And this is a pretty
(02:59):
credible source as well coming from SBI.
So, Darren, these three key, data points, you
know, just to summarize, 75% of buyers don't wanna interact
with sales. They prefer a sales free experience by, as according to
Gartner study, a credible source. That's horrifying.
(03:19):
If the seller makes it through, 87% of buyers
expect to be dealing with a trusted adviser, which they're normally
not, just to be honest. And then 59%
of the, of the experience, that's
59% of the impact on that buying decision.
And given that 75% stat, we know that
(03:42):
many b to b organizations are completely dropping
the ball and turn to that go to market buying
experience. So over to you, Darren. Any reflections?
Oh, absolutely. I mean, I'm just thinking about this. I went back
through just thinking about over the last year or 2. My own experience,
my own buying experience for especially software products,
(04:05):
fast products and different types of things. And I don't
remember the last time I talked to a sales rep. I I literally
don't remember. And the when I did go back to
the years, it wasn't necessarily a positive buying experience. It was it
didn't help enhance the buying experience. It it actually was more
negative. I typically do an evaluate online myself, so
(04:27):
I totally totally resemble exactly
exactly those numbers. And, you know, if I do talk to someone, it's because I
wanna understand how it's gonna help me, help my business. I don't wanna demo the
product. I don't wanna, you know, a, a feature function
discussion. So it absolutely matches my own experience.
Yep. Yep. So, Houston, we've got a problem. We
(04:49):
we literally really do, and, this needs to get
fixed. This is our the reason we exist, Darren,
in, you know, in in this partnership for valuepros.io.
We've got a big problem in the overall buying experience, the go to
market experience in the b to b world, and, we're we're we're sold out for
trying to fix it. So that brings forward our big
(05:12):
idea, what we're calling a total value
experience. And so for people watching this on YouTube, they
can see, you know, we've got a an arrow from left to right.
1 the left, start of the arrow is is labeled as
low. On the right side, it's labeled as high.
And then labeling the overarching arrow is total
(05:35):
value experience. And so this is something
that, you and I coined together with our other partner,
David, thinking about just how do we elevate
the overall experience. Now total value experience, just to provide
a definition, what that is is the cumulative
total value of all the the critical touch points
(05:58):
and interactions that your organization's having with that buyer,
both up to the point of, signing a contract
and beyond making sure that buyer receives value,
the impact that has been promised. And, so we
see that as the total value experience. So it's not just the offering
value. It's actually even the value of all those critical interactions.
(06:22):
And, and and the whole emphasis here is how do we
increase the total value experience so we can improve our win
rates and and help those buyers buy at the end of the day.
Yeah. Absolutely. And it and, you hit on a key point there that
it's more than just during the buying experience. It's also getting all the
way to value delivery by giving that, I was actually just having a conversation
(06:46):
with a a customer the other day, and they actually recognized
that their selling process ends when they get a
signed contract. And then they've had cases where 3 months
later, they go back and say, oh, we haven't talked to the customer since then.
And, you know, they they've kinda dropped the ball on making sure that the
customer actually starts to get value from what what they sold them.
(07:09):
Yeah. I'm I'm telling you. And even
immediately after signing contracts, I've seen some new data from Gartner.
I'll do another episode on that, but most buyers
right now in 2025 have buyers' remorse
even sometimes days after signing the contract. You know? Because
they're they're still overwhelmed and lost and don't know they don't see the
(07:32):
value. So and, there's another episode that
we did with Chuck Macaulay, and, I love that
episode where we're talking about first impact.
Hanging in there with the buyer, setting up, you know, follow
on meetings to make sure you're measuring
for and delivering on that promise of first impact and the value
(07:54):
associated with that. So some some of our clients are
building that functionality literally into their product and so the the
customer can see it real time, but many aren't. And and
so you need to, you know, orchestrate a meeting
where where you prove the efficacy of that solution
and and the associated value with that solution. So, yeah, just
(08:16):
big issues here. So just to move the
story along here, we see 3 key barriers
that, get in the way of providing your
buyers, your customers with a high total value
experience. These barriers keep the value experience
very low. The first one's perspectives. The second
(08:39):
one is tools, and then the third barrier
is disciplines. So what I'd like to do next is
just break down each one of these, each one of these barriers. And
and what's holding go to market teams and revenue
teams back from providing this high total
value experience to their customers. So as it relates to
(09:01):
perspectives, Darren, what I see and you see
very often is just a product
centric perspective where,
the marketing team and the sellers, they show
up answering the wrong question. And the
question we'd call it, why us? They're answering the question
(09:23):
of why choose us, our product, over
competitive alternatives. And let me tell you what's awesome about our
product. It's got this feature. It's got this feature. It's got this feature.
It it does this type of function, and here's some of the
benefit associated with this. But isn't it a great product? Don't you need
it? That's the focus both from the marketing side
(09:45):
off the go to any website. You're gonna see product center content.
And then if you and and then sellers, especially junior sellers,
will show up with a product centric point of view.
Again, answering the wrong question. Why us
versus why change? And what's the urgency of
(10:05):
that change? So just the wrong orientation, product
centric orientation. Any thoughts, Darren? Yeah. No.
Absolutely. I I remember years ago when we first started working together,
we were working with a customer, and we were reviewing some of their
content and their website. And I remember you specifically saying, and this was
probably 15 years ago, and or maybe even more.
(10:27):
You said, it's all about you, baby. And it was their whole
content was about their product, their offering, their service,
nothing about the customer, nothing about what the customer is doing. And,
unfortunately, that's still true today for most organizations. So
Absolutely. Focusing on the customer first is a critical
critical element. Yep. Yep. And we'll move into that. But, you
(10:49):
know, just to agree, you know, the predominance of this product
centric approach, It's not resonating with the buyers.
It's not resonating with their contact. It's not talking about the
value that they're they're losing their cost of inaction.
It's not talking about the potential upside, the outcomes. It's
literally focused on on the stuff, which is a
(11:11):
dangerous place to be. So that's the first barrier perspectives. The second
one's tools. And so, you know, metaphorically, I think of
of a, you know, trying to put a square peg into a round
hole. And and that's how I see most tools
that are being afforded to, to the
buyers in in this world of of trying to
(11:33):
provide buyers a a a higher
total value experience. Most of the tools that the
sellers are using are almost even like a ball and chain. They're
kinda holding them back, or they or they, you know, they they don't
use them or don't want to use them, and they're very often
very internally oriented, like a CRM system, for example, or
(11:56):
a account development form, you know, that they need to fill out.
You know, just activity level
tools that don't translate into real
value for the buyers, for the buying experience. Any
thoughts, Darren? Yeah. No. I totally agree. I mean, I I think
that across most organization, most of the tools provided to sales
(12:18):
are more for internal management reporting and understanding of what's
going on. CRM tools are for management. They're not really, in most
cases, for the the sales, and it's certainly not about the customer
experience, which is kind of interesting because it's called customer relationship management. But
they typically are more focused on internal metrics than
internal things, forecasting tools, like you said, account development tools. It's
(12:41):
all about how is it impacting our business, not how is it gonna help our
customer make a buying decision. Absolutely. Yeah. And
and things are getting a little bit better. Gosh. 1 of our,
one of my former clients, gong.io, can really
jazz up a CRM system and make it more relevant. But
that's that's the exception, not the norm that we see. Now fine
(13:03):
the final barrier is disciplines. And,
you know, from our experience, we might see, you know,
high performers within an organization. Some of those sellers that
that, you know, that that do help their buyers see the value
and quantify the value, but it's random at the end of
the day. Random acts of value is what I might call it. And,
(13:26):
it does happen, but randomly and not and not often enough.
And, so those are the 3 key barriers. Any any other thoughts, Darren,
before we move on? No. I yeah. Totally agree. I mean, you'll
see spots. And even people who are good at it don't do it consistently.
I mean, you know, it's, you know, still it's easy to just slip back
into focusing on the product, focusing on the wrong things, you know,
(13:49):
and, not have the right discipline to really always be
customer centric, always be customer customer focused. Yep.
Yep. So it it's still Random Acts, etcetera. So so
these three barriers, perspectives, tools, and disciplines,
what's the cost of these barriers? Here here's what it's costing,
in terms of win rates. Right now, you know,
(14:11):
a vendor, if they're lucky, might be winning 2 out of 10 deals.
And, the unlucky ones are winning 1 out of 10 or
sometimes even lower than that. Rarely
would they win more than 2 out of the 10 deals, that they're
pursuing. So win rates are just in in a trash can
right now. And and, you know, these these barriers and the these
(14:34):
lack of discipline, lack of the right types of tools, and the product
centricity really do hold everything back and and end up
with very low win win rates. Secondly, deal cycles.
When the when the customer can't see and articulate the
value, let alone themselves, how do they go about selling,
you know, 10 plus people on the buying committee? You know?
(14:57):
And and, hence, you've got these proactive deal cycle,
sales cycles that, you know, 60 to 70%
of the time end in no deal at all. You know, just complete
inaction. And then finally, you you'll
know if you're providing a low total value experience because
there's gonna be more discounting pressure where where the buyers are
(15:19):
gonna go, I don't see the value, and you guys are charging too much. You
know, I I need some serious concessions here if we're gonna move forward.
So you're gonna have way more price pressure discounting
pressure. And then, for people watching this, I I do
have an unhappy smile face here. Emotionally,
this this is kind of a sucky situation. Everybody's losing. The buyer, the
(15:42):
buyer's unhappy. Sellers that are trying to serve the buyers are
unhappy. Leadership's unhappy because, you know,
things aren't moving forward in the right type of way. Everybody's kinda
losing in this low total value experience paradigm,
again, presented by these barriers. Any thoughts,
Darren? Yeah. No. It's I mean, I would just take the load cycles
(16:03):
or long deals deals cycles one step further, and I think you talked about it
a little bit, the indecision. It's, you know, the the dreaded no
decision, you know, where you still think you're chasing this deal, you still
are pursuing it. It's not lost yet, but you never get it over the goal
line. And the customer is frustrated at that point as well. The buyer's
frustrated because they can't get it approved or they can't get the budget
(16:25):
allocated or whatever. So it's not just long
deal cycles. It's wasted time chasing deals that are
never gonna close if you can't get a business case. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. Great great point. And,
yeah, I've got another, disheartening quote, but 92%
of buyers of technology solutions need a business
(16:47):
case. And, one of our affiliates for Darren and
I, he's former head of procurement for Levi Strauss and
also CDW. And he mentioned rare is the
occurrence where a seller comes in and helps with the business case,
you know, which which protects that sales cycle and
very often ends in inaction. No no deal for nobody.
(17:11):
So, we call this whole situation that, that we're
painting, we're calling it value disconnected because
there's typically great value there. It's just not
connected into that total value experience you're trying to deliver to
your customers. And, you know, sometimes we refer to that as the
value fog. Everybody's kinda lost. Nobody's seeing clearly. We,
(17:34):
but in this instance, we're calling it value disconnected.
So let's talk about a better way, Darren. Let's let's let's turn the corner
and talk about how things could be. So on the perspectives
barrier, the the the better perspective
to have is like a magnifying glass on
value. 1 of our affiliates out of London
(17:57):
loves to talk about value, and his definition of value
is value is a mystery to be solved
for. So if you think of Sherlock Holmes with a magnifying glass, you're
out there looking for the value, and you're working with your buyer
and and getting their point of view on where the value is gonna be. And
you're you're mutually shaping the value
(18:19):
proposition together solving for that mystery.
So that's, you know, on the perspective side. On the
tool side Well, so I've got I've got a point of
yeah. Just I've got a quick point. You know, around that that I it
just reminds me of back about the time we met. You know, Stephen Covey
kinda put it best in habit number 5 out of the 7 Habits
(18:42):
of Highly Effective People. Habit number 5, seek first to understand
and then to be understood, which then it's it's the same thing
applies and people still don't do it. Seek first to understand the customer and understand
their perspective and how it could create value and where their problems are.
That should be the first goal, not to have them understand what
you're trying to achieve you know, what you wanna sell to them. Absolutely.
(19:04):
Yeah. And there's a lot of chatter on LinkedIn, etcetera. Just
just how everybody falls down on discovery,
and it's just so critical to to listen. You can also
offer point of view. You can speak, and and and lead
the witness as long as the witness is led and believes in that.
So you you really it's this cocreation type thing that
(19:26):
you're trying to get into. And that's the second point. What helps in
doing this is having the right tools. And,
visually, I'm painting a picture of 2 smiling faces, one of
the revenue team, the other of the buyer, both
looking at KPIs. Whose KPIs? The
buyer's KPIs, obviously, you know, trying to see in their
(19:49):
universe, what are the metrics that you can you can manage
for and influence to help them get promoted, to help them get
the value that they're seeking. But, you know, having both the
seller and the buyer, on the same team
with with tools that help them figure that out.
And, again, most sellers don't have the tools, and and, you know, some of the
(20:12):
high performers try to whip things up on spreadsheets, etcetera. But,
you know, the we do believe there should be this more
external orientation, buyer centric orientation of
what tools can we provide that are really gonna support this total
value experience. So that's the second, barrier
there. Uh-huh, Darren? Yep. Absolutely. And it's and, you know, the more you can tie
(20:35):
it to business impact, the outcomes that the customer's gonna
see, and the more you can tie it to what are their overall objectives? What
are the priorities of the business? How are how is what you're gonna, how you
can help them gonna tie to what their executives are saying. These are our top
three priorities, making sure you understand because the more you can tie it to their
overall, executive priorities, the the better
(20:56):
chance you're gonna get of actually being able to, get funded.
Absolutely. The deal. Win win the deal. Absolutely
critical. Yep. No. I well put. And then
the on the third side, on the disciplines,
what we see is a much better way
is, having a set of disciplines that you
(21:19):
can follow to increase the consistency
of creating a high total value experience
for your customers as they're buying with you. And,
we offer a framework for that,
thinking about 4 phases where you really need consistency
to drive a higher total value experience. The first
(21:42):
phase of the relationship with that customer is building trust.
And and there's a number of disciplines around doing that. The
second phase is around understanding their needs, just like what
Darren was saying, you know, seek first to understand before
you're understood. You know, really
diving in with deep discovery, doing your homework first, of
(22:04):
course, but for diving in with deep discovery with your your your
buying champion and and different stakeholders to figure out where
what are their needs and where where's the potential value point.
So that's the second phase. The 3rd phase is deliver
delivering insights with with your buyer.
Where do we see the potential value? What's real? What might not be so
(22:27):
real? But figuring it out together and presenting
that, justifying that value, and
and quantifying for it. So that's the 3rd phase.
And then the 4th phase is, like Darren said, many,
you know, customer sellers, you know, they sign a contract and run,
you know, but but sticking around, making sure that that promise
(22:49):
is being delivered. Driving execution
is what we call that. So four key phases where you
need to have consistent behaviors
that are gonna, you know, result in this total value
experience, a very high total value experience.
Darren, comment. Yeah. No. Absolutely. It's all about, you know,
(23:12):
I you know, we taught a lot of people talk about becoming a trusted adviser,
everything else, it's all about helping the customer, you know, create value
for the customer. I mean, in the end, in a b to b setting, you're
selling money, you're selling money to your customers, so you need to understand how you're
gonna help their business perform better. And it actually goes to what we
named named this business, Value Pros. You're you need to become a
(23:33):
value professional. You need to become a value professional, helping the customer
understand value, identifying areas
of impact, and then taking it all the way through to actually delivering
value for the customers. And that's what being a value professional is all about. A
value pro. Love it. Love it.
Absolutely. So, the benefits when when you get this
(23:56):
right, you know, all those negative, metrics that I talked
about, you know, the low win rate, of course, you're gonna increase your win rate
when you lead with this value and and and provide a greater
total value experience. Your deal cycles, they'll be
shortened, and you'll know if it's go, no go way
faster when you're leading with value. Of course, if you lead with
(24:18):
value and help shape that value proposition in a very clear way, a
very credible way, very compelling way, then
discounting, you know, it might not go
away, but but it it, the buyer won't
have as much power over that when when when that's
really well stated, and, everybody understands
(24:39):
it. And then, also, everybody's having more fun.
And and, you know, when you're providing a greater total value experience,
your buyers love you more. Your sellers wanna stick around and have
more fun because they're kinda killing it now and and having a much
better selling and buying experience. The the
marketing team, they're enjoying life, you know, because they're creating better
(25:02):
content and seeing better results as a result of that. If you're a
leader, you're having more fun because, not only do you have a a a
happy revenue team, but you're hitting your financial targets.
So there's a lot of upside towards improving the
total value experience in what we've been talking about.
Any thoughts, Darren? Yeah. No. It's, absolutely. I mean, it's
(25:24):
it's all about, like I said, value pro and delivering delivering
value to customers, allowing, you know, helping cost helping your customers,
businesses perform better and make more money. And if that's where you focus,
everyone's happier. Everyone wins. Yeah. And I
would just give this, a label to this whole, you know,
desired state of creating a greater total value experience.
(25:47):
I'm calling it value energized, Darren. What one of my
keywords for 2025 is energized
energy. And, when when when you're leading with
value and helping to shape value, quantify value,
that's what I call value energized. Everybody's gonna be
more energized at the end of the day because because they could
(26:09):
see and understand that value. So critical.
Rather be value energized than value disconnected for sure.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, in terms of,
what are the key drivers then to making this happen to be value in you
know, how do we energize with value? What's needed?
(26:29):
So the first thing we would say is
value content. So if you wanna shift the perspective
from, you know, off of the product and onto the value,
How do you do that? It doesn't it doesn't just happen on its own.
Value content will lead the way. So you'll have a
value narrative, and and what Darren and I are doing with you right now is
(26:52):
a perfect example of this. We've got a narrative that we're
that we're sharing with you. Secondly, value studies.
You know, looking across a number of different customers and just
looking for pattern, where are they seeing the value, and
how can we swing back and write about that, communicate
about that, and and use that as a basis for
(27:14):
quantifying value, those studies, getting our
benchmarks from them, etcetera. And then value
stories. So, you know, client x, You know,
here's what their situation was before. After
we arrived, here's the type of metrics that they've been able to
to to really improve in their world. And then,
(27:36):
emotionally, here's what they have to say about it. So really
anchoring case study by case study so your
revenue team has more to, help them in
communicating that value perspective. Thoughts,
Darren? Yeah. No. Absolutely. And it's and obviously, we're focused
very much here on the selling, the buying process, the customer bought
(27:57):
buying experience, and everything. But this starts all the way back with product
management, and developing the right product, understanding the market,
understanding the needs of the customer, developing the right products, marketing,
communicating appropriately based on how it's gonna deliver value in
that value content, value narrative all the way through the sales on the
buying process with, the the message through the narratives
(28:20):
through the sales process. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Absolutely.
So that's on the value content side. So the the
the next key lever in making this happen
is putting together value tools for your revenue
team. You know, for, you know, these tools can sit off a a of a
website and and marketing might own those, or these
(28:43):
tools could be used directly with sellers and the buyers as as
part of that, you know, person to person type of
movement. But enabling your
your team with value tools so they can help to communicate
and quantify the potential value. So the the type to
tools that, you know, just for example, you know, preparation
(29:05):
tools. I know there's a lot of AI this and that out there,
but, you know, are you providing the right tools for
your sellers and marketers to truly
understand their target buyers so they can do a
better account based marketing or actually, you know,
prospecting and outreach and having direct
(29:27):
selling conversations. But showing up prepared,
showing up relevant. So, again, we I swing
back to that stat that 75% stat, and your own
experience, Darren, mine as well. We'd rather run from sales and
engage. But if if those sellers had the right tools, had the
right perspectives, showed up value ready, ready to
(29:48):
deliver insight that we'd appreciate, it'd be a a, you know,
perceived so much differently. So that's preparation types of
tools. We have one that we offer called value brief.
Secondly, assessments. You know, what are we talking
about here is what we're trying to answer in terms of why change.
You know, is this a little change, big change? You know, what's the delta?
(30:10):
What's that look like? Assessment tools can just be
brilliant in helping, the buying organization get their
head around the problem and the degree of change required
and also the outcome if they do change.
So having a solid assessment is wonderful,
in in that spirit. And and we've got another episode on this where
(30:34):
we did a deep dive on what constitutes there's different types of
assessments and what constitutes good versus bad, etcetera. I'd
encourage everyone to watch that episode on assessments.
And then thirdly, and this is, you know, an, of course,
type of thing, but you wanna have value calculators.
And there's different flavors of those, value calculators, ROI calculators,
(30:57):
TCO calculators. And, it's funny. Very
often, we'll talk to clients and and they'll say, oh, yeah. Yeah. We've got a
value calculator, and and we'll ask, hey. Could you show it to me? Give me
a minute. Dang. Okay. Good. Give me a few more
minutes. And and, you know, they, a, they can't find it. B, you know,
it's maybe some nasty spreadsheet that a financial analyst put together,
(31:19):
from the from the finance team who didn't really understand the customer's world,
etcetera, but whipped something up. That's not what what we're
talking about. We're talking about, you know, something that's concerted, really well
made, and something that people want to use.
Yeah. Absolutely. And it's as you said, value value assessments. And even
even if you can get it all the way to a benchmark assessment to say,
(31:41):
here's how here's how you compare. Here's the big rocks of
of things that we've seen across other customers,
other parts of the market. How do you compare, and what's the
value that you could create? And not jumping too quickly too. We see,
as Bruce said, we see a lot of people say, oh, we got an ROI
tool. We got a spreadsheet that we build the ROI business case that no one
(32:02):
uses. It was too complex, or it jumps too quickly
into trying to get to the ROI business case, which it's early
on, it's more about highlighting and demonstrating
where's the value, what are the problems, how much is it worth to solve this
problem before you try to get to the cost justified business case. That's
the last step. That's that's at the end of the process, not not too
(32:23):
early. So that's you know, if you jump too quickly to that, it can slow
down the process or turn off the customer.
Yeah. Yeah. Especially if it comes across as being very vendor cent
centric and product centric. Now we're trying to be customer centric
upfront and talk about, hey. What are we talking about here? What's what's the potential
value? And what's the potential cost of inaction? You
(32:45):
know, that if we don't move forward, what's the downside of this whole
thing? What are the risks associated with this? Having kind of a bigger
conversation, upfront. So that's the value
tools. That's the second key lever that's really gonna
help everybody move to a, you know, provide a a
greater total value experience. And then the 3rd key
(33:07):
lever is value enablement.
And what we mean by that is, you know, providing your team with with a
playbook on, you know you know, hey. You know, where
where's the go to market, strategy leading us? You know, what what
what segments? What what's our ideal client profile? What are
the personas we're targeting? And then, wrapping
(33:29):
around some of the content that we talked about. You know, what's our core central
narrative that we're gonna be talking to those buyers about,
and and where's the potential areas of value? Where's the
potential areas of risk if they don't change?
Having, you know, and then also within those
playbooks talking about how to use the tools that are being provided.
(33:52):
Just having everything wrapped up, just thinking about maybe a football
team analogy so everybody knows who's on 1st, 2nd, you know, who
who's doing what, when to be
successful in in in selling, the the
solution. So the playbooks is a key part of value
enablement. Secondly, training. You
(34:14):
know, many sellers, especially junior sellers, might
not have the level of business acumen, might be uncomfortable,
and so they need some support in having better
value based conversations, and and training
certainly is helpful in that. And then thirdly, coaching.
You know, coaching for managers. How can they be a do a
(34:37):
better job of helping their first line reports do do
a better job of, value selling, if you would, and having those
value conversations? And, how can they be
better managers in that process? So those are the
3 key levers that we see in driving
a higher total value experience. Again, value content,
(34:59):
value tools, and value enablement. Value content
helping to shift the perspective from product to value.
Value tools helping to, you know, break away from some of
the internal tools to using tools that are truly gonna drive a
better buying experience. And then value enablement,
which is gonna take care of that lack of disciplines, and
(35:21):
inconsistency of disciplines problem, through
through value enablement. Yeah.
Absolutely. And I, you know, I I mentioned Stephen Covey in 7 Habits
earlier, but when I think of value enablement, I think of, you know, the the
whole sharpen the saw, you know, that you're constantly trying to be better. You're trying
trying to become a value pro, trying to deliver value to customers
(35:43):
every day, and be focused on that as your number one priority.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well and then, you know, a a
bit of a punchline here in in our story. Value pros
dot I o, you know, the reason we're existing is to
help people have a greater total value experience,
provide a greater total value experience. And we
(36:06):
do bring together the value content, the value
tools, and value enablement. We've got capabilities
and and experience across all these three key levers
that our clients can leverage, you know, based on where they need
support. And, Darren, just a quick
one. We've done this type of work. This
(36:29):
isn't our our first rodeo. You can see both Darren and I. We've
been around the block and and worked with many organizations.
And, but, you know, we we've worked with some of the best of the
best. You know, we we, put together our overall program for Tableau
before they, had their IPO. Most all of our
clients, at Tableau are multimillionaires now.
(36:52):
They they kinda hit it big. SAP,
we've worked with them. They acquired a company called Success Factors, and we
did a bunch of work with them, you know, both on getting their
story straight with a value narrative and then, you know, playbook that
helps everybody understand, you know, you know, what's our go to
market strategy, and who are we focused on, and what are the
(37:15):
key personas, what's key messaging and talk tracked, etcetera.
And then how do we have that value conversation? Especially,
trying to enable more of the sellers to have more of the value
conversation versus constantly trying to get the attention of the
value engineering team? How could we enable
the sellers to be more self sufficient, at least up front,
(37:38):
to get the ball rolling before the value engineering team gets involved?
And then, Darren, do you wanna talk a little bit about Verizon?
Yeah. No. We've been working with Verizon for years on enabling their sales teams to
sell, you know, enterprise level, IT and
telecommunications solutions. And, you
know, change the way they sell it from, you know, selling the technology,
(38:01):
selling the features and functions. I mean, they're selling a platform. They're selling a
enablement set of enablement technologies and really focusing on what is
the customer trying to achieve, what what are they trying to solve for,
and how is the enterprise solution around telecommunication going
to enable them to achieve those business outcomes that they might not be able
to achieve otherwise. So very focused on the the whole value
(38:24):
value experience within
within their enterprise sales. Well,
Darren, this has been a great discussion. Why don't we just,
come up with a few concluding remarks? I guess
my big wish is, for this whole notion
of a total value experience. I'm
(38:46):
hoping that this dialogue was helpful to you in
thinking about how can you create and drive
for a a higher total value experience in
2025 with your clients. And, you know,
we offered several perspectives on that. Perspectives, we talked about
tools, we talked about disciplines, and we talked about some of the key levers
(39:08):
to try to improve that. So, my biggest wish is
you you got something out of that and and some ideas perhaps that maybe
where where you can put some emphasis to try to create
a a a a higher total value experience.
Darren, any thoughts you have? Yeah. No. It's I mean, and along
the same lines, you know, what I would say is wake up every morning if
(39:31):
you're, you know, customer facing, if you're on the revenue team for
or anyone in individual contributor, marketing sales, whatever it may
be, wake up every morning thinking about how am I gonna become
a value professional and deliver more values to our customers, both through
the buying process, through the interactions, and make sure that we're
enabling our customers to be better every day and make more money. If you can
(39:53):
do that, you're more likely to be successful than not.
Absolutely. Yeah. And then I'll for also the sales leaders
and revenue leaders, the CROs of the world watching this,
and and enlightened marketers, you know, it's time
to probably shift emphasis towards a value centric
strategy, especially if you have a high consideration solution.
(40:16):
And and, you know, you're not a 100% into the product led
growth strategy. Tableau, for example,
was, but they decided to shift their
strategy towards value where we got the opportunity to work
with them. You know, thinking about how do we land more, you
know, bigger deals, more enterprise deals. How do how do we move upstairs
(40:38):
into the executive offices to have those types of
selling conversations? So if that's part of your strategy as
well, we we yeah. Hopefully, this is useful, and we should talk.
But Darren, on that note, thanks, Darren, for your
contribution. This has been fun. Yeah. Same same year, and hopefully,
everyone got value out of it. Yeah. Take care, everyone.
(41:00):
Alright. Thanks. To wrap up, we dove deep into
the total value experience, a game changing approach to
creating meaningful, measurable value throughout the
buyer journey. For me, the most insightful takeaway
was the emphasis on breaking down barriers, perspectives,
tools, and disciplines that hold companies back from achieving
(41:22):
success. It's a powerful reminder that leading with value isn't
just a strategy, it's a commitment. If you enjoyed
this episode, please like like and subscribe to the ValuePro Show. And
if you're feeling kind, leave a review so others can find and enjoy it
too. Take care.
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