What's Your Buyer's ROI on You?

Good morning! Back in my NYC office this week. Cautiously optimistic that spring is springing.

It was hard to leave San Diego. Last week started out rough weather-wise but by Saturday San Diego had returned to its usual beautiful self.

Not So Subliminal Ad for the Sales House.

"Never let formal education get in the way of your learning." Mark Twain

Sales Thought of the Day

People make a rational decision about how to spend their time.

Your buyers make a rational decision about how to spend their time.

In exchange for investing some of their time with you, buyers want to see a return on that time.

Every time you interact with a buyer and consume some amount of their time, you have to provide them with an ROI on the time they gave you.

How does the buyer measure the ROI of a single call? It’s not a financial calculation. “That 30 minute call with Andy earned an 8.37% return.”

No. it’s a binary assessment. Did the time they spent with you result in making progress toward their goal? Yes or no.

In other words, did the impact of your sales interaction with a buyer help them make progress toward making their decision?

I’m not referring solely to sales calls here. It could any form of communication you have with a buyer. A VM. Text. Email. Phone call. Video call. In-person call.

I’ve seen plenty of sellers with buyers that suddenly go radio silent. It's frustrating. It’s happened to all of us.

Generally it means that the buyer has decided that you aren’t worth anymore of his/her time.

If there were multiple instances in which your buyers didn't receive a return on their time invested in you, they will stop giving you time.

Trust me, this whole lack of time thing makes it very difficult to sell to them.

The key to the buyer earning a return (ROI) on the time they invest in you?

It’s the D from the 4 essential core sales skills contained in my BALD™ method.

That’s right. Deliver Value.

Did you deliver something of value (data, question, killer question, insight, case study, whatever) that enabled the buyer to make progress toward a decision?

Just FYI, delivering value doesn’t guarantee that you’ll win the deal.

It’s table stakes for staying in the game. And you can’t win if you aren’t playing.

- Andy Paul