Methodology: Understanding Command of the Message – d3v-adasales4

What Does it Mean to Have “Command of the Message"?

Being audible ready to define your solutions to customers’ problems in a way that differentiates you from your competitors and allows you to charge a premium for your products and services

Four things typically stand out from the definition:

“audible ready”: Being flexible in front of the customer. Being ready to respond and adapt, based on what you hear from the customer (“situationally fluent”). Note: This is an American football reference.
“solutions to customers’ problems”: Focused on addressing customer problems vs. product features and functions. Note: “He who owns the problem owns the customer.” It’s very difficult to commoditize a problem.
“differentiates you from your competitors”: How are you different?
“charge a premium for your products and services”: Get the most money for your product. Value Messaging is a way of thinking. It is a method of conversation and a way to elevate need and urgency. We see Value Messaging as a “core skill” that all sales people need to possess

What are the three critical sales skills?

1st Skill - Uncover Customer Needs: The foundation for selling on value is the ability to discern what the customer really needs. This is crucial in the beginning to build the relationship, as well as for quantifying the customer’s pain points and business objectives. Note: The number one human need in a buyer/seller relationship is to be heard and understood. In a study of executives, the top 2 complaints about sales people is that they don’t understand the executive’s business and they don’t listen well.
2nd Skill - Articulate Value and Differentiate: Talk about what you do for a living as it relates to solving customer problems and business objectives, and do it in a way that differentiates you from the competition. When discussing products, you must focus on solving customer problems. Any other discussion of features makes your product sound expensive, like “more than they need.” Note: If you do this too well, customers begin to think that it must be easy and that anyone can do it.
3rd Skill - Negotiate Value: Negotiating value requires a compelling business case that compares the cost of the solution against the cost of the problem. It’s much easier to preserve the margin when you’ve quantified the cost of the customer’s pain and business objectives early in the sales cycle. The alternative is to be viewed as a commodity. When sellers uncover needs, then articulate value and differentiation in relation to those needs, negotiation becomes less difficult.

How does Command of the Message keep Ada's company aligned on positioning?

We look at messaging alignment along three broad categories: Value Comprehension, Value Offering, and Value Engagement.

Value Comprehension is your company’s ability to identify and respond to trends in the market. It impacts how you craft and deliver marketing messages that reach (and resonate with) a broad market audience.
Value Offering involves your company’s ability to translate an understanding of market and customer trends into world-class product and service offerings. It also entails your ability to craft product-specific messages that address market pains and business objectives.
Value Engagement involves your ability to articulate your company’s value and differentiation at the moment of truth during sales conversations, then deliver on the promise of that value.
Value Messaging falls within the category of Value Engagement. The purpose of the Value Messaging Framework is to leverage Strategic Marketing and Product messages into impactful sales conversations that connect customer requirements with solution features and Differentiators.

These messages need to be highly ‘sales-consumable’. In other words, they need to be phrased in a way that sellers can readily use during real-world customer conversations. Crafting these messages in a sales-consumable manner requires a tight alignment across a company’s various Marketing, Product and Sales organizations. The Command of the Message methodology enables this alignment.

How does pain flow through the organization and why is it important to connect to the biggest problem?

The point of this model is to explain how your customer’s pain points and needs are driven by the goals, needs and pains of others within their organization.

The pain flow is broken down into three separate pieces:

Goals: Objectives to be accomplished (how the person is measured).
Needs: The requirements that an individual must satisfy to meet the objectives.
Pains: Obstacles in the way of satisfying the requirements and accomplishing the goals.”

Keep in mind that as a sales rep you get delegated to who you sound like. To resonate with the next level of buyer, you must believe that ‘What You Do Matters’. Do you believe this? Do you believe it so deeply that you can also bring your customer to believe this as well? Those of you who truly understand the value of what you do and are able to tie it to the biggest business issues in the organization, will also differentiate not only on WHAT you sell, but also on HOW you sell. Trust me, you will get noticed for this.

Keep in mind, there are multiple on‐ramps for any sale. Depending on where you are in the sales process, you must be aware of the scope of the customer problem at the level you’re entering the conversation. The goal is to attach yourself to the biggest problem possible. If you understand the way that pain flows through the organization, you can go up or down to get to the biggest problem. In the end, you may not be solving the biggest problem in its entirety, but you can still attach yourself to that problem by the way you define your solution.

The benefit of having this knowledge is obvious. If you can attach your solution to a large‐scale problem, you are likely dealing with buyers who have 1) More influence within the organization; and 2) More discretionary income to fund your solution. If you attach your solution to a smaller problem, you are more likely to be dealing with someone who has a smaller (fixed) budget and not as much influence.

What are the most important terms in the Command of Message methodology?

Value Drivers: These are your customer’s top-of-mind topics that create value for your buying audiences. They are the concepts that your customers want and desire from you. You must know how to address these concepts as well as how to articulate how you are different. These Value Drivers will form the basis for your customer conversations.
Value Cards: Each Value Driver has an associated Value Card that guides the seller’s talk track. Value Cards promote a consultative dialogue that begins with customer needs and ends with your highly-differentiated solutions. As such, Value Cards ensure that the selling process stays aligned with the buying process.
Defensible Differentiators: “Why You?” These address how you are either uniquely, comparatively or holistically better or different than the competition. Each Differentiator is accompanied by relevant customer value and defensibility to ensure alignment with what is most important to the customer. The definition of defensible is: It will stand up to scrutiny.
Discovery Questions: Great value-based selling requires great questioning skills. This is because the more that sellers attempt to persuade customers, the more customers tend to resist them. But the more that sellers attempt to understand and create value, the more customers will persuade themselves. The ultimate goal of good Discovery Questions is for your customers to persuade themselves that you are the best company to lead them to a place that they can’t get to on their own.
Trap‐Setting Questions: These questions are like Discovery Questions, except that they are asked with the specific intent of trapping the competition. They are used to introduce your Differentiators into the customer’s buying criteria.

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