Your answer was probably "Both! It's our knowledge of our products that enables us to help our customers". Absolutely correct! If this was your answer then you understand the process of selling value , i.e., applying our product or application knowledge in a way that helps our customers be more successful. This is the fundamental reason that your customers should pick you over a competitor and/or be willing to pay you a premium price.
Now if you're still with me on this and agree with what we've said so far, your reaction is probably "Okay, no rocket science there! That's pretty simple". It's rarely put into practice, however. The majority of salespeople and marketers alike still most often take the approach that it's their job to tell the customer about their product and the customer's job to see the value. In other words great product knowledge is enough.
It seems that a clever marketer or sales rep could create customer value (and competitive advantage) by actively looking for opportunities to help a customer solve or avoid problems, lower costs, improve operations, or increase profits by using the products they sell. To do this, of course, sellers would have to invest time and effort in a level of customer knowledge that was more than knowing key contacts or responding to bid requests. But wouldn't it seem to be worth it?
Again, if you're still with me on this, maybe you can tell me why I too often hear from salespeople the answer "I just don't have the time!"? They're too busy getting quotes or proposals out or making customer calls or responding to problems, or ... well, almost anything other than really learning the customer's business. Don't think that this is a diatribe against sales and marketing people because it isn't. Part of the problem is that most sales organizations train their people mostly on products and less on how their customers can best use them; and partly because value selling asks salespeople to step out of their comfort zone (product and price).
Most companies spend a lot of time and effort developing value selling strategies but not enough time creating sales organizations that know how to sell value by helping customers improve their business. It's a glass ceiling between strategy and execution ... and success.
