How To Stimulate Wants with Perceived Value | Sales Management Training | Sales Training | Sales Tra
Whenever clients work with professionals, they want the perception that they are getting more than compliance knowledge. Business clients want you to understand them. Understanding is the root of almost every person’s desires. When you take industry training, attend industry conferences, and read industry journals, you are working to understand the client and his industry. But it is critical not just to know their industries, but that your clients and prospects know that you know. You may develop deep expertise, but if the prospect doesn’t perceive your expertise, he won’t be affected.
The most successful and profitable firms help their people relate to clients’ perceptions of value. Yet it is likely that you and your clients have differing views on the value of your services.
Show You’re on Their Side
Clients and prospects want an advocate. When a prospect meets with an attorney, an accountant, or consultant, he wants the professional to be on his side before telling the prospect all the things that are wrong. Clients want proactive advocates as well. Recommending creative ideas and informing clients and prospects of pending legislation or conditions that might help or hurt business is a good way to be proactive in delivering ideas.
When asked, many professionals rate the value of their work in terms of the hours they have worked, the accuracy of their work, and the compliance of the work to the appropriate standards.
On the other hand, what your clients see as value is completely different. They’re probably not capable of judging the technical quality of your work. Instead, clients of professional firms see perceived value in terms of trust, response time, and the quality of the relationship.
Conclusion
What are you doing to improve your prospect’s perceptions of your value? A well-managed firm increases a client’s confidence and comfort. Trust and relationships are key. You can build these by implementing a policy to improve your response time, and by increasing the friendliness to, and personal treatment of, each client.
