Although our industry is changing by maturing and consolidating, some things nevertheless remain the same. One of them is the debate over pricing. Ever since I started in this industry back in the 1980s, there has been constant pressure to gain more market share and move more product by lowering prices.
It’s true that at the end of the day, the market sets the price more than manufacturers or dealers. However, in many cases, we are our own worst enemies. Without creating value around our product and service offerings, we’re often just selling on price. That, in turn, leads to our betting that greater volume (internally or through acquisitions) gets us the profits we need, which may not be the case.
Solution selling has long been positioned as the “promised land” of profitability. The challenge we all face, though, is that we don’t know what problem or problems the client has. Worse yet, the client either may not know themselves that they have the problem or feel the pain from it. Ironically, that rarely stops us from telling them about all the solutions we have to sell!
To add value and differentiate ourselves, we need to be solving more than simply the “problem” that the lease is expiring. In our experience, we have discovered that by concentrating on a few specific vertical markets, we are more likely to understand common problems and make clients and prospects more aware of them. Once they are aware of the problem, we can offer a solution.
On the Level
Often, the challenge seems to be making sure we’re talking to the right people in the account. This involves talking to the C-level people, not just the people we’re the most comfortable talking to. As we all know, it’s not easy to meet C-level people. Most C-level people are extremely busy and need to have very good reasons for investing their time in another meeting. By working through our existing clients and talking to employees throughout their organization, we’re better able to understand their workflows and potential improvements. This, in turn, provides valuable information for a C-level discussion.
Focusing on specific industries can help you to discover common problems that you can help solve. A productive discussion with a C-level executive usually revolves around asking questions that help reveal what the problems are and finding out what’s important to them. Before offering a solution, they need to acknowledge that there is a problem and it’s worth the time investment to solve it.
So, what’s your problem? What industries do you understand the most? Where can you add value? This is a great way to help focus your sales (and solutions) efforts where they will do the most good.
