There's Value, Value, Value & Value!

First off, a reminder regarding three critical facts about all of your customers:

• They don't care about you
• They don't care about your company
• They don't care about your products or services

OK, actually five reminders... 

• Regardless of their SIC or NAICS code, 100% of your customers are in the money-making business
• It's therefore critical to always strive to state the value you deliver in terms of $$$Dollars and ¢¢¢Cents because that's all they really care about 

Another aspect of your value depends on how many people and functions in the customer's business are improved by your products and services and how long that improvement lasts.  Think in terms of the diagram below.  At the bottom of the vertical axis, value is delivered to an individual; at the top, value is delivered across the entire customer organization.  At the left value is delivered once; toward the right the value hangs in there for a while.

Now consider the four quadrants.  A one-time shot of value to one person could be considered Personal Value.  It's great, but not as good as a one-time shot that delivers Pervasive Value across many customer business functions and/or geographic locations.

Even if your value is perceived by only one individual, it has much more power if it's a gift that keeps on giving.  (Remember, give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime???)  That's Permanent Value.

The best among us, though, live in the Persistent Value quadrant.  Wouldn't any customer prefer to receive value personally as well as being enabled to persistently share with lots and lots of others?  And who wouldn't prefer value today that persists into the future - into tomorrow, next month and next year?

Take a look at what you've sold so far this year.  How many deals fall into each quadrant?  What dollar amount of sales falls into each quadrant?  For the rest of the year how many deals and what dollar amount should fall into each quadrant?  How will you change your selling approach to make that happen?

Allowing customer value to just fall out of your proposals is nuts!  Drive it up and drive it to the right!