So why fight it? Effective selling skills are always in fashion, but a need exists for a validated sales process that helps you sell to your customers in the way they want to buy. The essence of buyer-based selling is this – use process over your product to generate dialogs that put you the salesperson in the position to make an intelligent recommendation. Yes, you have to make the sale, hit quota, meet profit targets. But your best business is going to come from opportunities where you leveraged your knowledge upfront to shape a conversation strategy that moved a buyer and their stakeholders to a place where they see the incontestable value of your solution. 

The term intelligent recommendation comes from the fact that you’re combining your pre-pursuit research and buyer spoken words about solving their problems to make a recommendation for your product or service. It’s not about features and benefits -  rather it’s about the alignment of your solution with the issues at hand. Features and benefits act as reinforcement for how it works and validates that your recommendation is sound.

POINT: Meaning more to customers is about adding such rich and deep value that your relationship transcends the product. 

For more information or to learn how your team can get more face time with prospects in the era of remote work, contact Bill Walton at bwalton@ascendadvisers.com .