business negotiation and the 4 key premises of value

Chances are, your company clearly has value (or you'd be out of business by now), but your external value (in the market) can quickly become diluted when your own company's internal estimation of that value is unclear, unfocused or even unwritten.

The impact of all this back and forth is an internal incoherence about what your value is at the top level and little connection of value to the street level sales person.  Clearly, one can imagine how effective the value messaging is to your customers and the impact it has on price pressure and margins when your team is selling and negotiating.  The good news is that there is a solution to all this and, best of all, it's not very complicated.  We do need, however, to start with a few key premises:

1. Value is incremental
2. Value drives price premiums
3. Typically, no one person is responsible for cross-functional and company-wide value
4. Companies need a living, breathing, evolving value ecosystem

Your company value is the sum of all your parts when building a business relationship with a customer firm.  It is not only the quality of your products and services that create value, but even the commercial language and risk sharing in your contracts; it is the new products in your pipeline, your overall financial stability, market image, the human relationships, etc.  All these moving parts might seem to make defining your value difficult, but if you see them as value, your perspective becomes much clearer.

Who's in charge of the care and feeding of your value proposition? Stay ahead of the curve by requesting the three-page article on value by clicking on the button below.