November 19, 2024 • 34 mins
Unlock the secrets to leveraging business value assessments in your sales strategy. Join Bruce Scheer and Paul Roberts as they delve into the transformative power of assessments to drive growth and build trust.
- Importance of assessments in aligning decision-makers and strategic planning.
- Phases of successful assessments: information gathering, analysis, and recommendations.
- Role of high-quality presentations in risk management sectors like finance and healthcare.
- Establishing trust and mutual commitment before conducting assessments.
- Monetizing assessments and ensuring their value is clearly communicated to clients.
00:00 Bruce Scheer discusses value selling with Paul Roberts.
04:15 Stand apart with improved sales and experience.
09:10 10-dimension self-assessment with personalized improvement report.
10:44 Assess options and compete with consulting firms.
15:41 Need proof through assessment before considering big change.
20:24 Peer-to-peer selling maximizes client outcomes effectively.
24:05 Client bypassed vendor, directly chose AWS instead.
25:02 Assessments can be valuable and rebated tools.
29:45 Broaden assessments beyond products for customer clarity.
31:45 Try the free online value assessment tool.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the value pro show where value pros get value
ready.
Hi. I'm your host, Bruce Shearer. And today, we're diving deep into the
critical aspect of value selling, how to lead your
customer with the business value assessment. I'm thrilled to
be joined by Paul Roberts, a global adviser who has spent
(00:23):
years helping fortune 5 100 and midsize companies sell
value by providing insights, assessments, and consultancy.
I've personally worked with Paul for about 10 years, and man oh, man
is he solid. He brings a wealth of experience having led
consulting units at significant firms like Ernst and Young,
PWC, and corporate executive board, and having
(00:45):
helped companies like Siemens, BT, and Medtronic
elevate their sales approaches. In this episode, we'll unpack
how helping your buyers with business value assessments can
differentiate the sales experience, elevate trust,
and ultimately help you lead your customers to success.
If you're looking for practical ways to elevate your customer engagements
(01:08):
and truly be a trusted advisor, this episode is for
you. I hope you enjoy it. Well, Paul, I am so excited
for our episode today. Thanks for joining the Valley Pro Show. And,
man, you and I both have a deep passion around
creating assessments for clients. And, we both had,
you know, just through prior our prior discussions, huge
(01:31):
success in increasing win rates. You know, one of the
key metrics right now in this tough market by,
using assessments between the clients we serve and their buyers.
And so this whole episode is how to lead your customer with
assessments, and Paul Roberts is just absolutely masterful
at doing that. I've I've kinda had a few trips around the block as well.
(01:54):
So we'll we'll we'll we'll show and tell and talk and have a great time,
in this episode. Thanks for joining, Paul. Okay. Pleased to be with
you. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, why don't we get in
kind of the first phase here? Why lead your customer with
assessments? And, Paul, I'll just kick it over to you. Why get
into this? Yeah. Thanks, Bruce. I think there are a lot of different
(02:16):
angles here. I mean, one clearly is to try and shift
the perception of value away from technical or
product value up to more strategic or business
value. So, you know, clearly, when you can do that, it is gonna
influence the customer much more in terms of
buying off you or expanding with you
(02:38):
or staying with you, right, if it's an existing
account. So a lot of different reasons for that. I mean, clearly, it can
differentiate the whole sales experience as well, Just,
having the seller or the seller's colleagues go
into a customer and carry out some sort of high value assessment
is gonna differentiate the whole experience, particularly if the competition don't
(03:00):
provide that as an offering. And, it's gonna enable you
to, get up and engage more senior stakeholders at the
customer, and really be that trusted adviser. And I know that is a
little bit of a cliched term, and it's been around for a long time now,
but it is still incredibly relevant. You need to be able
to, advise the customer on why
(03:22):
change, what to change, how to change. And if you can do
that, you're clearly in the number one spot to actually sell them your
product services solutions afterwards. Yeah. Absolutely,
Paul. Couldn't agree more. I mean, in this day and age, we're really competing on
this buying experience, in my opinion. And,
God, I mentioned to you that horrible stat. 70% of buyers
(03:44):
prefer to have a sales free experience. But when you come
in with an assessment back to your concept of being a
trusted adviser, I learned this from Anthony and ERI Iannarino
in the in the sales universe, but he was like saying, hey, trusted advisers, they
gain trust and they have advice. And that's
and having an assessment really puts you into that
(04:06):
position to to earn their trust and then also to
deliver really tangible, great advice
through using assessment. So and as you say, you'll stand
apart from the competitive, pack in terms of that sales experience, that
buying experience. You you'll you'll you'll be in a a class of
1 typically when when this goes well as you and I have
(04:28):
experienced. So anyways, huge reason for and
then I talked about a little bit just some of the key metrics is, hey,
you're investing a little bit more time, but, you know, the correlation is your win
rate goes way up. Your ability to sell more goes
way up. And and actually, if it goes really
well, you're that sales cycle should shorten, you know, because you're going
(04:50):
to be setting everyone up, including your buying champion and all those
stakeholders that need to be aligned with a compelling reason to
move forward based off that assessment and and the associated
business case with acting upon that. So we've talked
about the why, but now, Paul, as you would advise me,
let's get into the what. What do we access?
(05:13):
And I want it just to precede this a little bit with just
different assessment types. And, so there's lots
of assessments that that could be done. You
know, our firm value pros dot io, we create assessments for
our clients that they can use with our buyers, even their digital buyers. They're,
you know, human to digital type of buyers. So
(05:36):
everybody's probably seen the stats. 70% of the buying journey happens
online pre pre talking to sales. And,
we build, assessment for, you know, that that would
sit off a website that an online buyer could find and interact with.
You know, we've done that for NetApp, Thompson, Verizon, you know, a lot
lots of bigger firms, to support that digital to
(05:58):
human buying experience. And I'll show something like that
today, but I'd put that on one side of the continuum versus
very deep assessment where and that's where
Paul really kicks in with his experience on that. So,
is that a good framing, Paul, in your opinion, for, how to set up these
different assessment types? And I'll go ahead and show some examples.
(06:20):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think a lot of it comes down to
what are the customers' expectations. Okay? So if you're in
an industry sector where this is pretty much the norm, you've
obviously got to get your act together and do a really great job. There are
some industry sectors out there, particularly outside of
tech, that are really immature and undeveloped in this type
(06:42):
of area. A lot of it comes down to if you think customer
segmentation as well. So clearly your larger, biggest strategic
accounts, you're gonna really wanna do something
good quality with them as opposed to a real light touch
assessment, and they may be really underwhelmed by that. Whereas,
maybe a midsize customer or even a smaller one may be
(07:05):
very happy with a lighter touch assessment. So clearly, there is a cost
of sale angle to the assessment in terms of
how deep you go, to what extent is
it virtual, remote versus in person. I mean,
when I think about I do work a lot in the industrial
sector. You know, oftentimes then the sellers and their colleagues
(07:28):
will need to physically visit a site or multiple sites,
walk around, you know, talk to people, look at data. I
mean, that's very different from saying to a, hey. Send me a little bit of
information on this. We'll run it through a tool, and it'll spit out some answers
or some sort of assessment. Absolutely, Paul. I'll probably even create a little
framework for what we just started talking about. But, you know, you can have free,
(07:50):
assessments all the way up to, you know, paid assessments by by the buyer.
And then you can have, you know, complex assessments and simple assessments, you
know, online in person. Yeah. A number of different dimensions
for thinking about how, you know, what to assess and and
how to assess. What I wanted to do is just show,
typical, assessment. We we ourselves created one that I'm
(08:13):
hoping everybody either listening or watching the show is really gonna kinda
jump out there and take. It's free to you, but it it's really awesome. We
call it our value ready assessment. And, Paul, we had created this
assessment based on 10 dimensions that we identified
where sales reps need to show up value ready if they're gonna
be perceived as value professionals and and really create that
(08:35):
differentiated buying experience. And so,
you know, follows this framework with 4 key stages of build trust,
understand needs, deliver insights, drive execution. But
if they come over to valuepro.io,
and then, value assess value ready assessment with
and you can see this under our resources, drawer as well.
(08:58):
This is the assessment. So people, watching the show, you can
see my screen for people listening, and I'll describe it to you. But, yeah, you
come into the website. You're you know, you get the why take the assessment.
What is the assessment? What are the dimensions of it? What's a sample
output? Because you need to get people interested in actually doing the
assessment with you, then people get into it. They just start to
(09:20):
click through and, against each of those 10 dimensions, they rate themselves on a
5 point scale. You know, they move all the way through
that, and once ready, it
creates this, it gives them an assessment, a spider
chart of how they landed across the key dimensions.
And then they also get a report that
(09:43):
they can view that that's just absolutely
amazing, you know, piece of wisdom
and and focus element. So everybody on the show, I I
certainly hope you will take the report. Here's an example that
I'm showing. I'll I'll describe it as well, but you'll come in and you'll just
get this rich PowerPoint oriented, presentation,
(10:06):
how you scored across the 10 dimensions, what's the what are the kind
of the top line opportunities for you, and then specific
recommendations for what actions you can take across each one
of those dimensions to improve your score and and hence improve
your value readiness. And then at the end of the report, we have
numerous resources for you to get into for to
(10:29):
to learn how to up, you know, up your
game across each one of those dimensions. So, Paul,
this is an example of kind of a rich online free to the customer
type of assessment. Any observations from you? Yeah.
I I think, you know, a lot of organizations need to consider the breadth
of options, as I say, whether it's something like this, some segments
(10:52):
versus something perhaps more in-depth for recognizing or taking into
account what the competition are doing. Okay. So if they're doing
kind of like really deep level of assessment, you're gonna need to take that into
account as you think what is the right assessment for our customers. You
gotta think, well, where do my buyers get their advice from
today? Okay? So are they getting it from, the competition? Are
(11:14):
they getting it mainly from consulting firms? So there'll be some industry sectors where
really the sales organization that is selling products and
services needs to really be seen in in in some
areas as an alternative, a quality alternative to one of the big
accountancy or or consulting firms that would, kind
of typically go in there in the past. And, you know, when I think back
(11:36):
to one of my corporate roles, Bruce, we developed
a an assessment, a consultancy
offering that, ultimately, customers were
feeding back to us, hey, I don't need to go back to KPMG
or Deloitte anymore, and and and get their
help on on this area because you guys are now helping me on
(11:59):
this area. I don't need the advice. You guys are are giving me the
advice, and I know you're gonna sell product, but it I trust you,
and it you know, and and all of your kind of calculations and
assumptions and everything else are in there. So that's great.
And, actually, we'd prefer your your advice to some of the stuff we get from
one of the, one of the big firms. Yep. You bet.
(12:22):
Yeah. That that makes sense. But why don't we push a little
deeper, Paul, into your model here?
And again, you'll need to describe this for people listening.
But, you know, in terms of going deeper into that more,
deeper assessment land and and competing with, you know, perhaps,
the larger consultancies that might charge just a a bomb and bring a
(12:45):
a bus busload of consultants in. Yeah. There there
is a a way to do this. Do it practically. Go
ahead and describe, you know, the the probably the the beefier, more
complex type of assessments, Paul. Yeah. For sure. Well, let let's start
just thinking about the buying cycle. Right? Let's not think about selling. Let's think about
how customers are buying. So I think everyone listening will have a
(13:08):
model a mental model in their head. There are a number of
diagrams out there, you know, all fairly similar over the last 10 or 15
years that really talk about customers thinking about why would
I change what I do today in terms of the kind of status
quo through to, why
would I change, and then work with you? Okay.
(13:29):
So that's a separate point. Why would I work with you, the provider, to,
implement the change? And, obviously, after you've signed the contract and you've
delivered something, maybe 3, 6, 12 months later, they're gonna be
thinking, did you actually deliver the value that you
promised, many, many months ago? So I think the idea of
an assessment can come in at various different stages. It could be a new
(13:52):
business kind of why change assessment.
It could be an expansion, as in, you know, you already
work for this customer, but maybe you're in a multi supply arrangement, one
of several. Right? You might have 5 or 10 or 20%, and you might be
looking to differentiate yourself against the others and and try and get more
business. Or it could be more of a why stay, as in, you
(14:14):
know, the customer thinking, I I need some proof of the
value that you guys have delivered. And I don't want the account manager
to turn up and talk about what I've spent in KPI
performance in terms of service and all of that. I need something beefier
that really talks value and elevates the value up to
a strategic level. So, ultimately, you know, customers are thinking about, how do
(14:37):
I, make more money? How do I save money? Or how do
I manage risk? Nearly everything goes up into 1
or more of those 3 high level strategic,
imperatives. Yes. So once we thought about where does the assessment
fit, I think there's a couple of angles here.
As we all know in the last 10 or 15 years, the world of insight
(14:59):
led selling, has grown rapidly. It's probably
one of been one of the biggest movements, one of the most exciting things
that, you know, in my view, you know, most large
organizations have, doubled down on
to varying levels of success, right, in terms of how do we get our
sellers to lead with insight. Now often, what you say to our buyer won't
(15:22):
be enough. You could go in there with a great insight, and the buyer might
say, yep. I can get it. However, before I'm
prepared to socialize this with my peers and try and
drive some start getting up some momentum to change, I
need what you've just said proven for my
organization. I need you guys to come back in, talk to people, you
(15:43):
know, look at some of our information data, look at options, and come back
because what you're talking about is a big change here, and I'm not
gonna do that off the back of a sales meeting where you guys had come
in, you know, a a crisp, snappy message, that I do
need it proven with my numbers in the mix. So it can it
can dovetail nicely off the back of an insight and assessment.
(16:05):
Alternatively, if a if a frontline, sales rep doesn't
have some great short insights to share. I've
seen a lot of organizations go in and just say, hey, based on our
experience of serving other organizations like you, you know, we
would think that you might be spending 10% or 20% more than you need
to. In this area, we we would think that perhaps your revenue
(16:28):
is being limited in that area. We might think that your customer experience
or operational efficiency is lower than it needs to
be. What I would like to do is bring in
my colleagues and perform some sort of assessment. So
they could bring in some colleagues or specialists in this area or the seller
perhaps, you know, if they're able to and if it's not the most
(16:51):
complex client, may have the capabilities to go back themselves
and run some form of assessment, whether it's a a few hours
or a few days for the bigger opportunities. So I think the
idea of leading with insight is is kind of joined at the hip
with with assessments. You don't need to do both. But
for organizations, particularly, that are focused on insight led selling, they
(17:14):
do need to think about the assessment stage, and they do need to make sure
that it dovetails if what the frontline
sellers are saying and what happens next. Absolutely.
Absolutely. Totally agree. I wanted to highlight
also, Paul, and I'm sure you'll agree with this, but,
best practice for how do you how
(17:37):
do you follow through with, let me see if
I've got that visual here for us.
Yeah. So, you know, we can have a light assessment or a deeper assessment.
But the the key thing that I think about when I'm advising clients,
Paul, is what are we gonna do with that assessment, and how do
we get alignment around that assessment? So even with this
(18:00):
assessment types, visual, if you're if you're watching the show, the visual
on the right, if you're listening, it's a person standing up at a at a
whiteboard point or or a projector screen pointing at the
results of an assessment with everybody checking it out, tuning
in, and and getting alignment around that. And, I
I do think that the assessment is a wonderful piece of work to
(18:22):
get the type of information needed for decision makers to make
decisions and to gain that alignment. And, man,
when when when assessments have gone right in my career,
it's where we have that concerted step around
an alignment meeting and a planning meeting and and and an action
plan that comes from that, which includes buying that solution and
(18:45):
moving towards deployment. But, you know, it's
it's really a lever point for for alignment and
making decisions when I see this done right.
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And and I think, you know, for
most types of assessments, there are gonna be 3 types
of work phases needed. 1 is clearly gathering information.
(19:08):
Right? Whether that's the customer or maybe it's some external
benchmark information as well or whatever. It could be some qualitative. It could
be some quantitative, maybe a mix of both. It's analyzing
that information you've got back and, interpreting
it. And then the 3rd piece clearly would be developing options and
and recommendations, to put back to the customer.
(19:29):
So, So there could be a workshop in the middle of that as part of
that work. There might not be. It might be some sort of report that goes
back. It may be some sort of presentation, but clearly,
it does need to be compelling. It needs to be high quality.
And clearly, in some industry sectors,
(19:50):
the risk management needs to be thought about as well. So
I'm particularly thinking about financial services and healthcare
and areas like that, right, where you know, you would want, as our
as our commercial organizations, some checks and balances in place
just to ensure that what your team is going back
with is robust, particularly if the buyer
(20:12):
is, you know, viewing
the output that they get as maybe formal advice
versus just, you know, guidance, that type of thing.
Yeah. Yeah. And then when I the buying psychology
and selling psychology that I've witnessed that's produced the the
best outcomes for my clients has been it's
(20:35):
almost like a even a peer to peer selling relationship
between, you know, a a head of sales or
CRO or somebody on the ex XCO reaching
out to their counterpart at at the counter
organization saying, hey. You know, there we see
a huge opportunity for you in the solution area.
(20:56):
We're willing to invest some resources to do a proper assessment
so you can see what the potential impact's gonna be, for your
organization. And, but what we do
ask if we're gonna invest that time and energy, we ask you to reciprocate and
make sure the right people are at the table when we, reveal
the results of that assessment. And, so we can, you
(21:19):
know, see see what the impact can be and then make the right
choices and decisions accordingly by having the right people in the
room. Do you agree? And and if we've got that that
agreement, then the assessment can, ensue and
and the right people show up and and the magic happens. And,
Paul, I had mentioned this to you before, but I did a project between
(21:41):
Hewlett Packard and Microsoft where we identified 8
solutions, to that we wanted to go to market with.
And, you know, the the cost of the client was was in the the
1,000,000 to to deploy one of these solutions. So, of course,
we needed to have an assessment and all the right people at the table, but
that that, peer to peer selling and agreement setting
(22:03):
pre assessment really set the stage for success
for both the seller and the buying success.
And, when when we had a workshop, we designed a 2 hour
workshop around that that resulted in over a 50%
win rate or a deal close rate. When when when
everything went right, we had that workshop in place, client showed up,
(22:25):
50% of those clients bought. Yeah. That's very
that's very impressive. That's a great story. And I think,
to your earlier point, a lot of this is about trust.
So sales organizations need
to manage the level
of commitment that they're going to provide to
(22:47):
an organization. I have seen, and I've been burnt by this myself
personally, where we have rolled up, you know, with a with a prospect, a new
business, gone in, you know, done a
pretty deep assessment, and the customer loved it. And
And they said, this is kinda great. You know, I don't need to, you know,
spend x1000 or or euros or
(23:08):
whatever with someone else. This is great.
And they were pretty cheeky. They they they took the advice,
and then still went out to a full kind of RFP and
went with the cheapest providers. So they kind of got the best of both
worlds. So we learned what that in terms
of how to manage the level of
(23:31):
effort that we would provide. And there are various ways around
that in terms of, you know, how much do you provide upfront, how do you
try and manage that risk. And there are
many, many different kind of models to make sure that you minimize the
situation where you're, you know, you're going the extra mile with the customer,
but they're deciding and you might provide a great experience, but they're still maybe
(23:53):
got some, you know, kind of more old fashioned procurement types
in there who are thinking, this is great, but I'm gonna, you know, just kinda
go with one of the cheapest providers after him as they get the best of
both worlds. Yeah. Paul, that that's one area.
I was serving the one client emphasis.
They were so bummed. They spent so much time and
(24:15):
energy on a deal, and then instead of, you know, going with
emphasis for their services and and some of their their additional
technology as part of their cloud strategy for this particular
target prospect, The target prospect went through the assessment, took all
that wisdom and everything, and then just went directly to Amazon Web Services
AWS and just cut them out of the deal. But, you
(24:37):
know, I would just argue, you know, the art of a great
assessment, it should play to both the the buyer's
interest and the seller selling into entities interest.
That that's where it's win win, truly, but it needs to play to
differentiated value of of this the solution. And if it doesn't,
then then you get those end runs that aren't very fun at all
(25:00):
after all that time and energy. But when again,
when it goes right, you know, an assessment, a proper
assessment, it's a cost to sale, it can be,
Or, one of my clients even charged, $75,000
for an assessment, and they were giving that that as a rebate
to the client if they spent so much within a certain time period. They'd
(25:22):
they'd get their money back, if you would, in terms of a credit against some
of the solution they were buying. So, anyways, it it
doesn't have to be a a, you know, a total loss. You can get some
money for it, especially if that client chooses not to engage at a deeper level
because there is true value in that assessment, and it needs to
be, sold as a valuable
(25:44):
engagement. And that's one thing I've learned. I I did this type of work
with DXC as well and, one of the
largest service providers in the world. And, we
did. We, you know, just like any product you go to market
with, we really tightened up and made this assessment,
its own thing, its own marketing, its own infographics,
(26:06):
etcetera, but made it more tangible for the buyer so
the buyer could see the real value behind that exercise,
versus just something bypassing an ad hoc. No. Very concerted.
Here's the objectives for it. Here needs to, who needs to be participating
in the assessment. Here's what the workshop looks like. Here's what the
outcomes will expect from that workshop. Here new here's who needs to be
(26:28):
there. Everything really concretely detailed to
make that work. Yeah. And I think if you position it in that
way and, you know, and the the look and
feel of the communications and the emails around
it, as I say, resemble a professional
services type engagement. I think most
(26:50):
customers then will sit back and kind of realize
what they're getting if it's something complex. And hopefully, that will smooth
things, you know, over the coming days and the weeks. And as I said, we
are talking about the most complex type of assessment here as opposed to a kind
of lighter touch or just a questionnaire based
assessment that you might do for a smaller class. I do just
(27:12):
briefly want to touch on a great point you made, which is
even charging for some assessments. So again, this comes
to why you assess in the 1st place. I mean, clearly, you
know, it is to be that adviser. It is to try it is effectively
crudely as a sales aid to win more business, expand, or
defend. I have seen a lot of organizations start
(27:35):
thinking, well, hold on. Could this be a new income stream? Yeah. Okay.
For advice, which can be great. I do but I've also seen
organizations think that and then actually lose track of,
you know so they've made a little bit of money out of it. It's it's
super small compared with what they could have been doing if they
had kind of done it almost for nothing and it's sold more
(27:57):
product and services. So organizations, I think, need to get very clear
on, you know, what is the purpose, the kind of the raison d'etre
of of providing advice? Is it
to sell ultimately lead to more products and services? Or could
it be and they could get distracted by this. Could it be, oh, this is
a new nice high margin revenue stream? How much higher margin on our products
(28:20):
and services? But if organizations that are really just trying to sell
this as a freestanding service, they can maybe,
come out of it almost worse than if they just thought about the
much, much bigger prize in most organizations of
this being the, you know, the spearhead, the the tip,
if you like, of the whole sales and customer
(28:44):
experience and relationship. No. Totally. It really does. And I've
been in and hide our dialogues and arguments
even, and I'm sure you have too. Is this sales leverage, or is it
its own thing? You know? Is it out of the sales organization, or is it
out of professional services? And, you know, just trying to figure the
and and what are their goals versus their goals? And, your advisement
(29:06):
also, you know, I agree with as well. You gotta lead with the buying entity
and, you know, what do they need and then figure it out. But, you
know, obviously, this is such a wonderful approach, you know,
because the big prize is increasing win rates, especially for bigger deals
and grow growing that relationship with the customer, especially when you do the
swing back assessments around, you know, how how have we done and what else
(29:28):
can we do, as as part of that, you know, why stay type of
paradigm that you'd mentioned, Paul? Well, hey. Paul,
let's, bring it in for a landing. I'd just ask you, is there anything
else on your mind that you thought people need to be thinking about before we
break on this episode? No. I think the big questions are why
do it, what to assess, and how.
(29:51):
And I think, the what to assess sounds like it's pretty
obvious. Right? If you if you if you provide products and services
in, you're gonna be assessing what is
the status quo of the customer, what are the alternative approaches
that they might be taking. All I would say is that
oftentimes it makes sense for the sales organization to maybe
(30:13):
broaden that out a little bit in terms of the breadth of what they look
at at the customer. So sometimes it might make sense to look at some
things, you know, just outside of of
maybe their products and services that can
it would just make sense to the customer if they get a report back that
looks at a particular area and if it excludes
(30:35):
certain things that the sales organization doesn't do, sometimes that can
look a little bit odd in the eyes of the customer. Right? So as
an example, I work for an organization
that used to provide fleet vehicles in rides, so
trucks, vans, cars, at a fleet level,
thousands of them into different organizations. And when we
(30:58):
went in and did assessments, you know, we would look
at some things in that ecosystem as the customer
saw it, you know, related to fuel, related to,
accidents and rates and and insurance and
taxation, and all the rest of it. Right? And
some of those things, we didn't have a product to sell
(31:21):
to solve a particular problem, but it was just pretty obvious
to us that it would be sensible to look at some related areas. It was
fairly easy for us, and also it delivered a lot of value back
to the customer, and it just helped with the whole the whole
package, if that makes sense. Awesome. Oh, yeah. Totally. Totally.
Well, you know, I just really encourage our our
(31:44):
listening and viewing audience. You know, if if you think
an assessment's gonna help in your area, you know,
please, please reach out to us. This is what we do, one of our favorite
things to do, Paul and I. The other thing is,
if you wanna see what a good assessment looks like that that's more on the
free side and also probably directly related to yourself. If
(32:05):
you're a revenue team leader, you wanna assess your team, or if you're an individual
contributor, team, or if you're an
individual contributor and you wanna assess your own abilities
across these value ready dimensions, how value ready are
you? Please, take our free online,
value ready assessment, and you'll find that at valuepros.ioresources.
(32:25):
Go to the resources tab, value ready assessment, and and have some fun there.
It's it's a very rich resource into what Paul was
saying, bring value to the buyer for you. You'll have a lot of,
resources that you could take advantage of to improve your value readiness
across all those 10 dimensions. So, anyways, back to you,
Paul. Paul, thank you so much for joining the show. This has been awesome.
(32:48):
Yeah. I know. It's been great talking with you, Bruce, and, hopefully, this has been
a useful session as well for all of those,
growth leaders out there that are trying to find new ways to,
to drive growth in their business. Absolutely. Yeah. 2025, I
think, is gonna be rough, and, this will be one huge
area that'll improve the the the buying process and the
(33:10):
selling activity. Having an assessment in your quiver will be very
helpful. Thank you, Paul. Thanks, Bruce. Cheers.
Thank you so much for joining us on today's episode of the ValuePro Show.
Paul Roberts' insights have been fantastic. It's clear
that assessments can be such tool for guiding
our customers to a better outcome and setting ourselves
(33:33):
apart in a crowded marketplace. For those of you listening,
don't hesitate to reach out to Paul on LinkedIn. You just need to
type in Paul Roberts advisor
into the search bar bar, and he'll show up immediately. Or you can find
him here at valuepros.i0 if you're interested in leveraging
Paul for assessments or for your sales strategy. We we'd be excited
(33:56):
to work with you on that. And don't forget, we've got a
fantastic free resource for you, the value ready assessment.
Head over to valuepros. Io, go to the resources tab,
and take the value ready assessment to see how prepared you and
or your team are to deliver value to your customers.
It's a great way to identify areas to improve and ensure
(34:19):
your value ready for 2025. Thanks again, everyone,
and stay value focused.
Welcome to the value pro show where value pros get value
ready.
Hi. I'm your host, Bruce Shearer. And today, we're diving deep into the
critical aspect of value selling, how to lead your
customer with the business value assessment. I'm thrilled to
be joined by Paul Roberts, a global adviser who has spent
(00:23):
years helping fortune 5 100 and midsize companies sell
value by providing insights, assessments, and consultancy.
I've personally worked with Paul for about 10 years, and man oh, man
is he solid. He brings a wealth of experience having led
consulting units at significant firms like Ernst and Young,
PWC, and corporate executive board, and having
(00:45):
helped companies like Siemens, BT, and Medtronic
elevate their sales approaches. In this episode, we'll unpack
how helping your buyers with business value assessments can
differentiate the sales experience, elevate trust,
and ultimately help you lead your customers to success.
If you're looking for practical ways to elevate your customer engagements
(01:08):
and truly be a trusted advisor, this episode is for
you. I hope you enjoy it. Well, Paul, I am so excited
for our episode today. Thanks for joining the Valley Pro Show. And,
man, you and I both have a deep passion around
creating assessments for clients. And, we both had,
you know, just through prior our prior discussions, huge
(01:31):
success in increasing win rates. You know, one of the
key metrics right now in this tough market by,
using assessments between the clients we serve and their buyers.
And so this whole episode is how to lead your customer with
assessments, and Paul Roberts is just absolutely masterful
at doing that. I've I've kinda had a few trips around the block as well.
(01:54):
So we'll we'll we'll we'll show and tell and talk and have a great time,
in this episode. Thanks for joining, Paul. Okay. Pleased to be with
you. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, why don't we get in
kind of the first phase here? Why lead your customer with
assessments? And, Paul, I'll just kick it over to you. Why get
into this? Yeah. Thanks, Bruce. I think there are a lot of different
(02:16):
angles here. I mean, one clearly is to try and shift
the perception of value away from technical or
product value up to more strategic or business
value. So, you know, clearly, when you can do that, it is gonna
influence the customer much more in terms of
buying off you or expanding with you
(02:38):
or staying with you, right, if it's an existing
account. So a lot of different reasons for that. I mean, clearly, it can
differentiate the whole sales experience as well, Just,
having the seller or the seller's colleagues go
into a customer and carry out some sort of high value assessment
is gonna differentiate the whole experience, particularly if the competition don't
(03:00):
provide that as an offering. And, it's gonna enable you
to, get up and engage more senior stakeholders at the
customer, and really be that trusted adviser. And I know that is a
little bit of a cliched term, and it's been around for a long time now,
but it is still incredibly relevant. You need to be able
to, advise the customer on why
(03:22):
change, what to change, how to change. And if you can do
that, you're clearly in the number one spot to actually sell them your
product services solutions afterwards. Yeah. Absolutely,
Paul. Couldn't agree more. I mean, in this day and age, we're really competing on
this buying experience, in my opinion. And,
God, I mentioned to you that horrible stat. 70% of buyers
(03:44):
prefer to have a sales free experience. But when you come
in with an assessment back to your concept of being a
trusted adviser, I learned this from Anthony and ERI Iannarino
in the in the sales universe, but he was like saying, hey, trusted advisers, they
gain trust and they have advice. And that's
and having an assessment really puts you into that
(04:06):
position to to earn their trust and then also to
deliver really tangible, great advice
through using assessment. So and as you say, you'll stand
apart from the competitive, pack in terms of that sales experience, that
buying experience. You you'll you'll you'll be in a a class of
1 typically when when this goes well as you and I have
(04:28):
experienced. So anyways, huge reason for and
then I talked about a little bit just some of the key metrics is, hey,
you're investing a little bit more time, but, you know, the correlation is your win
rate goes way up. Your ability to sell more goes
way up. And and actually, if it goes really
well, you're that sales cycle should shorten, you know, because you're going
(04:50):
to be setting everyone up, including your buying champion and all those
stakeholders that need to be aligned with a compelling reason to
move forward based off that assessment and and the associated
business case with acting upon that. So we've talked
about the why, but now, Paul, as you would advise me,
let's get into the what. What do we access?
(05:13):
And I want it just to precede this a little bit with just
different assessment types. And, so there's lots
of assessments that that could be done. You
know, our firm value pros dot io, we create assessments for
our clients that they can use with our buyers, even their digital buyers. They're,
you know, human to digital type of buyers. So
(05:36):
everybody's probably seen the stats. 70% of the buying journey happens
online pre pre talking to sales. And,
we build, assessment for, you know, that that would
sit off a website that an online buyer could find and interact with.
You know, we've done that for NetApp, Thompson, Verizon, you know, a lot
lots of bigger firms, to support that digital to
(05:58):
human buying experience. And I'll show something like that
today, but I'd put that on one side of the continuum versus
very deep assessment where and that's where
Paul really kicks in with his experience on that. So,
is that a good framing, Paul, in your opinion, for, how to set up these
different assessment types? And I'll go ahead and show some examples.
(06:20):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think a lot of it comes down to
what are the customers' expectations. Okay? So if you're in
an industry sector where this is pretty much the norm, you've
obviously got to get your act together and do a really great job. There are
some industry sectors out there, particularly outside of
tech, that are really immature and undeveloped in this type
(06:42):
of area. A lot of it comes down to if you think customer
segmentation as well. So clearly your larger, biggest strategic
accounts, you're gonna really wanna do something
good quality with them as opposed to a real light touch
assessment, and they may be really underwhelmed by that. Whereas,
maybe a midsize customer or even a smaller one may be
(07:05):
very happy with a lighter touch assessment. So clearly, there is a cost
of sale angle to the assessment in terms of
how deep you go, to what extent is
it virtual, remote versus in person. I mean,
when I think about I do work a lot in the industrial
sector. You know, oftentimes then the sellers and their colleagues
(07:28):
will need to physically visit a site or multiple sites,
walk around, you know, talk to people, look at data. I
mean, that's very different from saying to a, hey. Send me a little bit of
information on this. We'll run it through a tool, and it'll spit out some answers
or some sort of assessment. Absolutely, Paul. I'll probably even create a little
framework for what we just started talking about. But, you know, you can have free,
(07:50):
assessments all the way up to, you know, paid assessments by by the buyer.
And then you can have, you know, complex assessments and simple assessments, you
know, online in person. Yeah. A number of different dimensions
for thinking about how, you know, what to assess and and
how to assess. What I wanted to do is just show,
typical, assessment. We we ourselves created one that I'm
(08:13):
hoping everybody either listening or watching the show is really gonna kinda
jump out there and take. It's free to you, but it it's really awesome. We
call it our value ready assessment. And, Paul, we had created this
assessment based on 10 dimensions that we identified
where sales reps need to show up value ready if they're gonna
be perceived as value professionals and and really create that
(08:35):
differentiated buying experience. And so,
you know, follows this framework with 4 key stages of build trust,
understand needs, deliver insights, drive execution. But
if they come over to valuepro.io,
and then, value assess value ready assessment with
and you can see this under our resources, drawer as well.
(08:58):
This is the assessment. So people, watching the show, you can
see my screen for people listening, and I'll describe it to you. But, yeah, you
come into the website. You're you know, you get the why take the assessment.
What is the assessment? What are the dimensions of it? What's a sample
output? Because you need to get people interested in actually doing the
assessment with you, then people get into it. They just start to
(09:20):
click through and, against each of those 10 dimensions, they rate themselves on a
5 point scale. You know, they move all the way through
that, and once ready, it
creates this, it gives them an assessment, a spider
chart of how they landed across the key dimensions.
And then they also get a report that
(09:43):
they can view that that's just absolutely
amazing, you know, piece of wisdom
and and focus element. So everybody on the show, I I
certainly hope you will take the report. Here's an example that
I'm showing. I'll I'll describe it as well, but you'll come in and you'll just
get this rich PowerPoint oriented, presentation,
(10:06):
how you scored across the 10 dimensions, what's the what are the kind
of the top line opportunities for you, and then specific
recommendations for what actions you can take across each one
of those dimensions to improve your score and and hence improve
your value readiness. And then at the end of the report, we have
numerous resources for you to get into for to
(10:29):
to learn how to up, you know, up your
game across each one of those dimensions. So, Paul,
this is an example of kind of a rich online free to the customer
type of assessment. Any observations from you? Yeah.
I I think, you know, a lot of organizations need to consider the breadth
of options, as I say, whether it's something like this, some segments
(10:52):
versus something perhaps more in-depth for recognizing or taking into
account what the competition are doing. Okay. So if they're doing
kind of like really deep level of assessment, you're gonna need to take that into
account as you think what is the right assessment for our customers. You
gotta think, well, where do my buyers get their advice from
today? Okay? So are they getting it from, the competition? Are
(11:14):
they getting it mainly from consulting firms? So there'll be some industry sectors where
really the sales organization that is selling products and
services needs to really be seen in in in some
areas as an alternative, a quality alternative to one of the big
accountancy or or consulting firms that would, kind
of typically go in there in the past. And, you know, when I think back
(11:36):
to one of my corporate roles, Bruce, we developed
a an assessment, a consultancy
offering that, ultimately, customers were
feeding back to us, hey, I don't need to go back to KPMG
or Deloitte anymore, and and and get their
help on on this area because you guys are now helping me on
(11:59):
this area. I don't need the advice. You guys are are giving me the
advice, and I know you're gonna sell product, but it I trust you,
and it you know, and and all of your kind of calculations and
assumptions and everything else are in there. So that's great.
And, actually, we'd prefer your your advice to some of the stuff we get from
one of the, one of the big firms. Yep. You bet.
(12:22):
Yeah. That that makes sense. But why don't we push a little
deeper, Paul, into your model here?
And again, you'll need to describe this for people listening.
But, you know, in terms of going deeper into that more,
deeper assessment land and and competing with, you know, perhaps,
the larger consultancies that might charge just a a bomb and bring a
(12:45):
a bus busload of consultants in. Yeah. There there
is a a way to do this. Do it practically. Go
ahead and describe, you know, the the probably the the beefier, more
complex type of assessments, Paul. Yeah. For sure. Well, let let's start
just thinking about the buying cycle. Right? Let's not think about selling. Let's think about
how customers are buying. So I think everyone listening will have a
(13:08):
model a mental model in their head. There are a number of
diagrams out there, you know, all fairly similar over the last 10 or 15
years that really talk about customers thinking about why would
I change what I do today in terms of the kind of status
quo through to, why
would I change, and then work with you? Okay.
(13:29):
So that's a separate point. Why would I work with you, the provider, to,
implement the change? And, obviously, after you've signed the contract and you've
delivered something, maybe 3, 6, 12 months later, they're gonna be
thinking, did you actually deliver the value that you
promised, many, many months ago? So I think the idea of
an assessment can come in at various different stages. It could be a new
(13:52):
business kind of why change assessment.
It could be an expansion, as in, you know, you already
work for this customer, but maybe you're in a multi supply arrangement, one
of several. Right? You might have 5 or 10 or 20%, and you might be
looking to differentiate yourself against the others and and try and get more
business. Or it could be more of a why stay, as in, you
(14:14):
know, the customer thinking, I I need some proof of the
value that you guys have delivered. And I don't want the account manager
to turn up and talk about what I've spent in KPI
performance in terms of service and all of that. I need something beefier
that really talks value and elevates the value up to
a strategic level. So, ultimately, you know, customers are thinking about, how do
(14:37):
I, make more money? How do I save money? Or how do
I manage risk? Nearly everything goes up into 1
or more of those 3 high level strategic,
imperatives. Yes. So once we thought about where does the assessment
fit, I think there's a couple of angles here.
As we all know in the last 10 or 15 years, the world of insight
(14:59):
led selling, has grown rapidly. It's probably
one of been one of the biggest movements, one of the most exciting things
that, you know, in my view, you know, most large
organizations have, doubled down on
to varying levels of success, right, in terms of how do we get our
sellers to lead with insight. Now often, what you say to our buyer won't
(15:22):
be enough. You could go in there with a great insight, and the buyer might
say, yep. I can get it. However, before I'm
prepared to socialize this with my peers and try and
drive some start getting up some momentum to change, I
need what you've just said proven for my
organization. I need you guys to come back in, talk to people, you
(15:43):
know, look at some of our information data, look at options, and come back
because what you're talking about is a big change here, and I'm not
gonna do that off the back of a sales meeting where you guys had come
in, you know, a a crisp, snappy message, that I do
need it proven with my numbers in the mix. So it can it
can dovetail nicely off the back of an insight and assessment.
(16:05):
Alternatively, if a if a frontline, sales rep doesn't
have some great short insights to share. I've
seen a lot of organizations go in and just say, hey, based on our
experience of serving other organizations like you, you know, we
would think that you might be spending 10% or 20% more than you need
to. In this area, we we would think that perhaps your revenue
(16:28):
is being limited in that area. We might think that your customer experience
or operational efficiency is lower than it needs to
be. What I would like to do is bring in
my colleagues and perform some sort of assessment. So
they could bring in some colleagues or specialists in this area or the seller
perhaps, you know, if they're able to and if it's not the most
(16:51):
complex client, may have the capabilities to go back themselves
and run some form of assessment, whether it's a a few hours
or a few days for the bigger opportunities. So I think the
idea of leading with insight is is kind of joined at the hip
with with assessments. You don't need to do both. But
for organizations, particularly, that are focused on insight led selling, they
(17:14):
do need to think about the assessment stage, and they do need to make sure
that it dovetails if what the frontline
sellers are saying and what happens next. Absolutely.
Absolutely. Totally agree. I wanted to highlight
also, Paul, and I'm sure you'll agree with this, but,
best practice for how do you how
(17:37):
do you follow through with, let me see if
I've got that visual here for us.
Yeah. So, you know, we can have a light assessment or a deeper assessment.
But the the key thing that I think about when I'm advising clients,
Paul, is what are we gonna do with that assessment, and how do
we get alignment around that assessment? So even with this
(18:00):
assessment types, visual, if you're if you're watching the show, the visual
on the right, if you're listening, it's a person standing up at a at a
whiteboard point or or a projector screen pointing at the
results of an assessment with everybody checking it out, tuning
in, and and getting alignment around that. And, I
I do think that the assessment is a wonderful piece of work to
(18:22):
get the type of information needed for decision makers to make
decisions and to gain that alignment. And, man,
when when when assessments have gone right in my career,
it's where we have that concerted step around
an alignment meeting and a planning meeting and and and an action
plan that comes from that, which includes buying that solution and
(18:45):
moving towards deployment. But, you know, it's
it's really a lever point for for alignment and
making decisions when I see this done right.
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And and I think, you know, for
most types of assessments, there are gonna be 3 types
of work phases needed. 1 is clearly gathering information.
(19:08):
Right? Whether that's the customer or maybe it's some external
benchmark information as well or whatever. It could be some qualitative. It could
be some quantitative, maybe a mix of both. It's analyzing
that information you've got back and, interpreting
it. And then the 3rd piece clearly would be developing options and
and recommendations, to put back to the customer.
(19:29):
So, So there could be a workshop in the middle of that as part of
that work. There might not be. It might be some sort of report that goes
back. It may be some sort of presentation, but clearly,
it does need to be compelling. It needs to be high quality.
And clearly, in some industry sectors,
(19:50):
the risk management needs to be thought about as well. So
I'm particularly thinking about financial services and healthcare
and areas like that, right, where you know, you would want, as our
as our commercial organizations, some checks and balances in place
just to ensure that what your team is going back
with is robust, particularly if the buyer
(20:12):
is, you know, viewing
the output that they get as maybe formal advice
versus just, you know, guidance, that type of thing.
Yeah. Yeah. And then when I the buying psychology
and selling psychology that I've witnessed that's produced the the
best outcomes for my clients has been it's
(20:35):
almost like a even a peer to peer selling relationship
between, you know, a a head of sales or
CRO or somebody on the ex XCO reaching
out to their counterpart at at the counter
organization saying, hey. You know, there we see
a huge opportunity for you in the solution area.
(20:56):
We're willing to invest some resources to do a proper assessment
so you can see what the potential impact's gonna be, for your
organization. And, but what we do
ask if we're gonna invest that time and energy, we ask you to reciprocate and
make sure the right people are at the table when we, reveal
the results of that assessment. And, so we can, you
(21:19):
know, see see what the impact can be and then make the right
choices and decisions accordingly by having the right people in the
room. Do you agree? And and if we've got that that
agreement, then the assessment can, ensue and
and the right people show up and and the magic happens. And,
Paul, I had mentioned this to you before, but I did a project between
(21:41):
Hewlett Packard and Microsoft where we identified 8
solutions, to that we wanted to go to market with.
And, you know, the the cost of the client was was in the the
1,000,000 to to deploy one of these solutions. So, of course,
we needed to have an assessment and all the right people at the table, but
that that, peer to peer selling and agreement setting
(22:03):
pre assessment really set the stage for success
for both the seller and the buying success.
And, when when we had a workshop, we designed a 2 hour
workshop around that that resulted in over a 50%
win rate or a deal close rate. When when when
everything went right, we had that workshop in place, client showed up,
(22:25):
50% of those clients bought. Yeah. That's very
that's very impressive. That's a great story. And I think,
to your earlier point, a lot of this is about trust.
So sales organizations need
to manage the level
of commitment that they're going to provide to
(22:47):
an organization. I have seen, and I've been burnt by this myself
personally, where we have rolled up, you know, with a with a prospect, a new
business, gone in, you know, done a
pretty deep assessment, and the customer loved it. And
And they said, this is kinda great. You know, I don't need to, you know,
spend x1000 or or euros or
(23:08):
whatever with someone else. This is great.
And they were pretty cheeky. They they they took the advice,
and then still went out to a full kind of RFP and
went with the cheapest providers. So they kind of got the best of both
worlds. So we learned what that in terms
of how to manage the level of
(23:31):
effort that we would provide. And there are various ways around
that in terms of, you know, how much do you provide upfront, how do you
try and manage that risk. And there are
many, many different kind of models to make sure that you minimize the
situation where you're, you know, you're going the extra mile with the customer,
but they're deciding and you might provide a great experience, but they're still maybe
(23:53):
got some, you know, kind of more old fashioned procurement types
in there who are thinking, this is great, but I'm gonna, you know, just kinda
go with one of the cheapest providers after him as they get the best of
both worlds. Yeah. Paul, that that's one area.
I was serving the one client emphasis.
They were so bummed. They spent so much time and
(24:15):
energy on a deal, and then instead of, you know, going with
emphasis for their services and and some of their their additional
technology as part of their cloud strategy for this particular
target prospect, The target prospect went through the assessment, took all
that wisdom and everything, and then just went directly to Amazon Web Services
AWS and just cut them out of the deal. But, you
(24:37):
know, I would just argue, you know, the art of a great
assessment, it should play to both the the buyer's
interest and the seller selling into entities interest.
That that's where it's win win, truly, but it needs to play to
differentiated value of of this the solution. And if it doesn't,
then then you get those end runs that aren't very fun at all
(25:00):
after all that time and energy. But when again,
when it goes right, you know, an assessment, a proper
assessment, it's a cost to sale, it can be,
Or, one of my clients even charged, $75,000
for an assessment, and they were giving that that as a rebate
to the client if they spent so much within a certain time period. They'd
(25:22):
they'd get their money back, if you would, in terms of a credit against some
of the solution they were buying. So, anyways, it it
doesn't have to be a a, you know, a total loss. You can get some
money for it, especially if that client chooses not to engage at a deeper level
because there is true value in that assessment, and it needs to
be, sold as a valuable
(25:44):
engagement. And that's one thing I've learned. I I did this type of work
with DXC as well and, one of the
largest service providers in the world. And, we
did. We, you know, just like any product you go to market
with, we really tightened up and made this assessment,
its own thing, its own marketing, its own infographics,
(26:06):
etcetera, but made it more tangible for the buyer so
the buyer could see the real value behind that exercise,
versus just something bypassing an ad hoc. No. Very concerted.
Here's the objectives for it. Here needs to, who needs to be participating
in the assessment. Here's what the workshop looks like. Here's what the
outcomes will expect from that workshop. Here new here's who needs to be
(26:28):
there. Everything really concretely detailed to
make that work. Yeah. And I think if you position it in that
way and, you know, and the the look and
feel of the communications and the emails around
it, as I say, resemble a professional
services type engagement. I think most
(26:50):
customers then will sit back and kind of realize
what they're getting if it's something complex. And hopefully, that will smooth
things, you know, over the coming days and the weeks. And as I said, we
are talking about the most complex type of assessment here as opposed to a kind
of lighter touch or just a questionnaire based
assessment that you might do for a smaller class. I do just
(27:12):
briefly want to touch on a great point you made, which is
even charging for some assessments. So again, this comes
to why you assess in the 1st place. I mean, clearly, you
know, it is to be that adviser. It is to try it is effectively
crudely as a sales aid to win more business, expand, or
defend. I have seen a lot of organizations start
(27:35):
thinking, well, hold on. Could this be a new income stream? Yeah. Okay.
For advice, which can be great. I do but I've also seen
organizations think that and then actually lose track of,
you know so they've made a little bit of money out of it. It's it's
super small compared with what they could have been doing if they
had kind of done it almost for nothing and it's sold more
(27:57):
product and services. So organizations, I think, need to get very clear
on, you know, what is the purpose, the kind of the raison d'etre
of of providing advice? Is it
to sell ultimately lead to more products and services? Or could
it be and they could get distracted by this. Could it be, oh, this is
a new nice high margin revenue stream? How much higher margin on our products
(28:20):
and services? But if organizations that are really just trying to sell
this as a freestanding service, they can maybe,
come out of it almost worse than if they just thought about the
much, much bigger prize in most organizations of
this being the, you know, the spearhead, the the tip,
if you like, of the whole sales and customer
(28:44):
experience and relationship. No. Totally. It really does. And I've
been in and hide our dialogues and arguments
even, and I'm sure you have too. Is this sales leverage, or is it
its own thing? You know? Is it out of the sales organization, or is it
out of professional services? And, you know, just trying to figure the
and and what are their goals versus their goals? And, your advisement
(29:06):
also, you know, I agree with as well. You gotta lead with the buying entity
and, you know, what do they need and then figure it out. But, you
know, obviously, this is such a wonderful approach, you know,
because the big prize is increasing win rates, especially for bigger deals
and grow growing that relationship with the customer, especially when you do the
swing back assessments around, you know, how how have we done and what else
(29:28):
can we do, as as part of that, you know, why stay type of
paradigm that you'd mentioned, Paul? Well, hey. Paul,
let's, bring it in for a landing. I'd just ask you, is there anything
else on your mind that you thought people need to be thinking about before we
break on this episode? No. I think the big questions are why
do it, what to assess, and how.
(29:51):
And I think, the what to assess sounds like it's pretty
obvious. Right? If you if you if you provide products and services
in, you're gonna be assessing what is
the status quo of the customer, what are the alternative approaches
that they might be taking. All I would say is that
oftentimes it makes sense for the sales organization to maybe
(30:13):
broaden that out a little bit in terms of the breadth of what they look
at at the customer. So sometimes it might make sense to look at some
things, you know, just outside of of
maybe their products and services that can
it would just make sense to the customer if they get a report back that
looks at a particular area and if it excludes
(30:35):
certain things that the sales organization doesn't do, sometimes that can
look a little bit odd in the eyes of the customer. Right? So as
an example, I work for an organization
that used to provide fleet vehicles in rides, so
trucks, vans, cars, at a fleet level,
thousands of them into different organizations. And when we
(30:58):
went in and did assessments, you know, we would look
at some things in that ecosystem as the customer
saw it, you know, related to fuel, related to,
accidents and rates and and insurance and
taxation, and all the rest of it. Right? And
some of those things, we didn't have a product to sell
(31:21):
to solve a particular problem, but it was just pretty obvious
to us that it would be sensible to look at some related areas. It was
fairly easy for us, and also it delivered a lot of value back
to the customer, and it just helped with the whole the whole
package, if that makes sense. Awesome. Oh, yeah. Totally. Totally.
Well, you know, I just really encourage our our
(31:44):
listening and viewing audience. You know, if if you think
an assessment's gonna help in your area, you know,
please, please reach out to us. This is what we do, one of our favorite
things to do, Paul and I. The other thing is,
if you wanna see what a good assessment looks like that that's more on the
free side and also probably directly related to yourself. If
(32:05):
you're a revenue team leader, you wanna assess your team, or if you're an individual
contributor, team, or if you're an
individual contributor and you wanna assess your own abilities
across these value ready dimensions, how value ready are
you? Please, take our free online,
value ready assessment, and you'll find that at valuepros.ioresources.
(32:25):
Go to the resources tab, value ready assessment, and and have some fun there.
It's it's a very rich resource into what Paul was
saying, bring value to the buyer for you. You'll have a lot of,
resources that you could take advantage of to improve your value readiness
across all those 10 dimensions. So, anyways, back to you,
Paul. Paul, thank you so much for joining the show. This has been awesome.
(32:48):
Yeah. I know. It's been great talking with you, Bruce, and, hopefully, this has been
a useful session as well for all of those,
growth leaders out there that are trying to find new ways to,
to drive growth in their business. Absolutely. Yeah. 2025, I
think, is gonna be rough, and, this will be one huge
area that'll improve the the the buying process and the
(33:10):
selling activity. Having an assessment in your quiver will be very
helpful. Thank you, Paul. Thanks, Bruce. Cheers.
Thank you so much for joining us on today's episode of the ValuePro Show.
Paul Roberts' insights have been fantastic. It's clear
that assessments can be such tool for guiding
our customers to a better outcome and setting ourselves
(33:33):
apart in a crowded marketplace. For those of you listening,
don't hesitate to reach out to Paul on LinkedIn. You just need to
type in Paul Roberts advisor
into the search bar bar, and he'll show up immediately. Or you can find
him here at valuepros.i0 if you're interested in leveraging
Paul for assessments or for your sales strategy. We we'd be excited
(33:56):
to work with you on that. And don't forget, we've got a
fantastic free resource for you, the value ready assessment.
Head over to valuepros. Io, go to the resources tab,
and take the value ready assessment to see how prepared you and
or your team are to deliver value to your customers.
It's a great way to identify areas to improve and ensure
(34:19):
your value ready for 2025. Thanks again, everyone,
and stay value focused.
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