If you want to be a consultative salesperson, a trusted advisor, and a Level 4 Value Creator, then you have to tell the truth. It’s your truthfulness, your candor, and your willingness to help come up with ideas that can help that makes you worth buying from. Avoiding the difficult conversations makes you something less, someone less, someone selling transactionally.

Do You Make Price the Issue?

Some things that you might believe make selling easier actually make it far more difficult.

You might believe that lowering your price makes it easier for your client to choose you over your competitors. But lowering your price lowers the perception of value that you are creating and makes it more likely that your client chooses a competitor with a lower price.

Why? Because you commoditized yourself and made price the issue instead of value.

You might believe that allowing your prospect to control “the process” makes you a better salesperson, that by following their commands you are demonstrating what kind of partner you will be, and that doing so increases the likelihood that you are chosen. But allowing your client to control the process eliminates many of the steps you need to take to both create value and position yourself to win.

Why? Because not asking for the commitments you need eliminates your ability to create value and makes you transactional.

You might believe that not telling your prospective client just how difficult it is going to be to get the result they want, that their own constraints (including under-investing) are the root cause of their problems, and that it is going to take more time, more effort, and more money will make it easier for you to win their business. Maybe it will; but what then will you be charged with?

If you want to be a consultative salesperson, a trusted advisor, and a Level 4 Value Creator, then you have to tell the truth. It’s your truthfulness, your candor, and your willingness to help come up with ideas that can help that makes you worth buying from. Avoiding the difficult conversations makes you something less, someone less, someone selling transactionally.

Just as fast is slow and slow is fast, difficult is easy and easy is difficult.