Welcome back to the ClarityES1 podcast series. I’m your host, Chris Deren and after a couple of decades of helping field teams develop into their full potential, we’ve learned a lot, especially about strategic account management and how to get it right.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across seasoned, 20-to-25-year sales and account management professionals who struggle to come up with the right value-based messages with key customers and decision makers. For them, it’s certainly not a lack of experience. And yet there’s often a large gap between the value they think they’re conveying and what is actually being received.

Whether it’s the elevator pitch used to describe what they do, the message that gets them in the door at the right level or the ones that keep them there as the opportunity sales cycle evolves, there’s a number of ways messages of value miss their target and I thought half-way through the year would be a good time to see if we can help reshape the way they get created in the first place.

The most appropriate analogy I could think of for value message creation is coming up with a good recipe. Sometimes it takes several attempts to find the right “mix” of ingredients along with increasing or decreasing their amounts to get the final optimal result. I see developing value-based messaging very much in the same way….. There are certain ingredients that can’t be overlooked; some obvious, some not-so-obvious. And there’s also the issue of “dialing up” or “dialing down” the intensity of particular ingredients based on the objective and of course, the audience.

When I think of B2B value messaging especially, I also think about translation. Translation might sound like a strange component to consider but let me explain…… Even when the upfront research is done and you think you have a compelling argument as to why someone should respond favorably to your delivered message, there’s one more critical step that a lot of folks seem to miss. And that is the task of translating the value you believe you represent, (your product, your service, your company and yourself), into something that aligns to a time-sensitive priority of the person you are trying to influence.

I bring up this “translation” issue because until it happens, too much of the burden of figuring out how and why the value in messages relates to something of interest, falls on the prospective decision maker, when it really should be the other way around.

By now, we’ve all been hearing about how much of the sales cycle is taking place before a prospect decides to engage. Some surveys indicate that as much as 75% of it is happening without our involvement. This is mostly due to the proliferation of self-service and omni channel choices buyers have to educate themselves beforehand.

Of course, there’s a limit to how much a decision maker can find out about your company and products and services (and sometimes even about you), before they decide to grant a conversation or meeting. Keep in mind however, the same thing works in reverse. Especially with the largest or most strategic accounts, you can spend hours researching and fact-finding to uncover the type of intelligence about a prospect’s company, needs and challenges (and hopefully about the stakeholders themselves), which “should” establish a mix of potent ingredients for your value-based messages. But if that effort falls short of uncovering what’s going on in that stakeholder’s world from an agenda-setting and priorities perspective, that final translation of value can’t happen. The result: Disappointment that your otherwise well-researched message of value didn’t open up that door or keep you in those meetings.

So, after watching this value creation dance play out over the years, and in no particular order, here’s what we believe it takes to get the “mix” of ingredients right to deliver messages that truly resonate and lead to mutual action:

Ingredient #1: Foundational Understanding

As obvious as it sounds, there’s usually something that gets missed in the effort to learn about the prospect being called on ahead of time. On the surface, it’s not hard to see why this happens. Industry-level knowledge comes first but of course this level of understanding is the easiest to duplicate amongst competitors so no real advantage there. The same could be said about company-level intelligence. As many tools exist these days (including AI-based) to help in understanding what’s going on at the company level, this is not the most difficult type of fact-finding to emulate. It’s at the stakeholder level that the blind spots start to appear. “What’s at the top of their individual agendas?” “What’s causing their top priorities to shift?” “How inwardly focused or open are they when it comes to working with vendors, suppliers or partners?” These are the kinds of data points that require more creating digging. And as much promise technologies like AI and ChatGPT hold to help in these efforts, sometimes there’s no substitute to sending that email to a colleague and asking for help to fill in the missing stakeholder pieces.

Ingredient #2: The Value and Impact of Represented DNA

Yes, of course, the value of what you represent plays a role here; just not always the leading one you may think. If someone has reached the point in their sales or account management career where they recognize that the value they personally represent, their own “value currency” and good will they’ve built up in the way they conduct themselves with customers is just as if not more important than their company’s product and/or services DNA, then they are one step ahead from the start. But that “personal currency” value, coupled with the perception of the value of their product or services and company, can often be compromised by how well or poorly it’s all converted and translated into something of time-sensitive value to the prospect or decision maker. And the more the source of that value is coming from within an industry like high-tech, manufacturing or financial services where there’s increasing amounts of commoditization or life sciences where downward pressure on price is driving more and more decisions, value translation is often the missing ingredient in establishing competitively differentiated messages.

Ingredient #3: Contrast with Other Alternatives

Inevitably, interest in the value messages being delivered flows through the “filter” of “Why should I care?” or “Why is this important to me?” And that filter is usually established by what “other alternatives” are available to that stakeholder during the time period it’s being delivered in. Of all the potential alternatives decision makers have, doing nothing or losing to “no decision” seems to come up more often than most anticipate. The question to ask here is “why?” It’s often the case that there are conditions on the ground in that company or surrounding that stakeholder that can’t be easily spotted from the outside. How many times have sales and account folks come across a lead that looked like a sure thing initially but ended up languishing and going nowhere?

Even if a buyer’s priorities have remained the same since the last time they engaged in an opportunity cycle, they may be reporting to someone new who has a fresh set of priorities leading to a fresh set of “other alternatives” for that decision maker to contemplate. And while the value message being delivered might be accurate and even timely, it doesn’t hold enough urgency in comparison to other things going on. Either way, the potency of the message being delivered is diluted when the contrast with other alternatives is considered.

Ingredient #4: Agenda Balancing

If we had to zero in on the biggest issue that comes up when creating the right “mix” of value creation ingredients, it’s the missing component of balancing the agendas of the person delivering the message with the person receiving it. The most difficult “mental muscle” for many sales and account professionals to flex is the concept of taking their agenda and putting it aside.

Initially at least.

This is not how sales professionals are programmed of course but the ability to do this is key to tailoring messages of “intrinsic” value to prospects and customers. It does generate a bit of grumbling when we encourage sales and account teams to set their agenda’s aside in the early stages of crafting messages of value. That angst tends to dissolve however once we explain that it’s not just about setting their agendas aside so they can feel like they’ve done a good job focusing on the customer’s agenda. It is as much about allowing creative room for messages of value to form in the first place and when delivered properly, demonstrate to the customer that their agenda is recognized and prioritized. This in turn makes it easier and far more credible to bring the seller’s agenda back into focus and align the two at the right time.

Now for the part that’s admittedly subjective……

Here’s what we would recommend in terms of adjusting the intensity of this mix of ingredients:

1. Agenda Balancing: 35%
2. Foundational Understanding: 25%
3. The Value and Impact of Represented DNA: 20%
4. Contrast with Other Alternatives: 20%

One could argue how much weight should be given to each of course. But the two main takeaways here are:  1. That the value you, your company and your products or services represent is only a portion of the overall mix of ingredients and 2. That real value in the messages being created and delivered does not exist until the “mix” of value ingredients are organized and promoted with the right intensity to make it easier for the recipient to see how and why that value maps to their time-sensitive priorities and agendas.

We know, easier said than done sometimes but true nonetheless.

If you would like to explore how we can help your teams get the mix of value messaging right, drop us a note at info@clarityes1.com and we’d be happy to assist.

Thank you for listening to the ClarityES1 Podcast Series. Until next time…….