The Value of Value = 2.5x

Posted by Peter Cohan on July 1, 2009

3 comments | 1219 reads

In 2008 Gartner surveyed over 600 IT buyers, asking them to identify both the strengths and the weaknesses of marketing and sales efforts across all types of technology providers.

“More than half the respondents said the biggest weakness or shortcoming in IT sales and marketing efforts is the lack of a quantified value proposition. The survey data also showed that, on average, buyers are 2.5 times more likely to buy products if a vendor is able to effectively quantify its value proposition.”

[I’ve added the underlines]

This is a rather compelling reason to uncover the Delta, the value associated with the prospect making the change from their current situation to the solution you are offering. As Gartner points out, this Delta must be expressed in tangible terms of time, people or money – specific numbers.

For more tips and articles on demonstration effectiveness skills and methods, email me at PCohan@SecondDerivative.com or visit our website at www.SecondDerivative.com. For demo tips, best practices, tools and techniques, join the DemoGurus Community Website at www.DemoGurus.com or explore our blog at http://greatdemo.blogspot.com/.

Peter Cohan

Peter Cohan is the founder and principal of The Second Derivative, focused on helping software organizations improve the success rates of their demos. In 24, he enabled and began moderating DemoGurus®, a community web exchange on software demonstrations. He is the author of the book Great Demo! - how to prepare and deliver surprisingly compelling software demonstrations.

About Peter Cohan |
Connect:

Categories:

1219 reads
Print
Email

3 comments »

Andrew Rudin

July 6, 2009

77% of Statistics are Made Up

The language of business is money, and salespeople can't compete in the B2B world without a persuasive financial case. But in my experience, these often lead to numerical "bake-offs" that provide an advantage for the most creative accounting or operational proof. For all parties to receive a fair hearing, a forensic accountant should analyze the findings--but that rarely happens. "Sure, Competitor X shows a 3% advantage in ROI, but they've based their calculation on initial investment, not on total cost of ownership."

The saying I keep in mind is "people make their decisions on emotions and back them up with facts." By the time the numbers are offered, decisions are often already made.

Peter Cohan

July 7, 2009

Which has more impact..?

Which has more impact?

"Using our software will save you time and money..."

"Using our software will enable you to recover $40K and 1.5 FTE's annually, based on your own numbers..."

A very important aspect of the "value of value" is that the numbers need to come from the customer. This provides a stronger basis for supporting one's emotional decision and to enable a person to sell/justify internally to one's management.

Peter E. Cohan
The Second Derivative
1538 Winding Way
Belmont, CA 94002
Telephone: +1 650 631 3694
Email: PCohan@SecondDerivative.com
www.SecondDerivative.com
http://greatdemo.blogspot.com/
www.DemoGurus.com

Alan J. Zell

July 13, 2009

The Value of Value

Peter, When one uses the term“value,” whose value? Value is always in the eyes of the beholders (i.e. customer and the customer’s customers, each of whom want a positive customer experience). So, while all buyers want a resource to quantify ROI as a criteria, they may be doing it not for a quantified answer but that they will be asked what the ROI will be. Interesting, no one can quantify ROI until after it has happened as ROI is an after-the-fact number.

It is asked, sometimes by a customer because others will ask the customer what the ROI will be to justify their involvement in making their decision. It is part of the C-Y-A Syndrome. Some of this quest is to show still, even, others that those who are in on the decision-making process made sure the business is getting more than they are paying for or if it turns out not so, hey want a guarantee that if it does not meet that criteria, some compensation will be made.

There are two another factors in wanting quantified answers or a stated ROI that is fuzzy thinking.
* The final result of what ROI will be is determined on how the customer’s firm uses what they purchased.

* No matter what they paid, if, after the fine tuning is done, if it does the job intended or even more, if it has a long life of usage, everyone wins and a new criteria is set, set higher, for the next firm wanting to sell their products/services.

Lastly, one has to ask if customers want a quantified number, is it due to their being asked this by those they are trying to sell whatever they make/do?

Alan
Alan J. Zell, Ambassador of Selling, Attitudes for Selling
Recipient of the Murray Award for Marketing Excellence
Attitudes for Selling offers consulting, workshops and speaking on all business topics that affect sales.
He can be reached at azell@aol.com or through his web site, http://www.sellingselling.com

Post new comment

Your name: *

E-mail: *

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage:

Subject:

Comment: *

Input format

Filtered HTML

Allowed HTML tags: <a> <img> <hr> <table> <tr> <td> <th><ul> <ol> <li> </li><blockquote> <colspan> <rowspan>
Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
Images can be added to this post.

Post

Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
Images can be added to this post.

More information about formatting options

Notify me when new comments are posted

All comments

Replies to my comment

CAPTCHA

No spam permitted! Moderator reviews ALL content before publication to ensure compliance with the CustomerThink terms of use.

To block automated spam submissions, please answer this question.

What code is in the image?: *

Enter the characters shown in the image.

MarketPlace

Drive customer loyalty, empower support teams, and reduce costs. Get social.

[Feb 22] Guest speakers from Forrester Research, Allscripts, and CustomerThink will discuss market trends and research on social customer service strategies, as well as proven tactics from the trenches. Join the live webcast on Feb 22 at 10am Pacific (1pm EST).

Global Customer Experience Management (CEM) Certification Program

[March 13-14, Paris] An internationally recognized program with proven track record of success - being run for 33 times in 13 cities with attendees from 50 countries, the program is developed based on the U.S. patent-pending Branded CEM Method which aims to drive customer loyalty and brand differentiation with quantifiable business results. Limited offer: USD300 early bird discount.

10 Steps to a Single Customer View

Linking customer data across department databases and business units improves business intelligence, customer profiling, and customer management. This paper outlines 10 steps to improve the quality of customer contact data, including physical mail, email, and telephone information.