Monetising or ‘dollarising’ the value for what you have to offer is so important. It sets out in a clear way why the customer will benefit from spending money with you. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for those of us that are bothered to do it) most sales people don’t take the time to set out a proper business case for their product or service. What do we mean by ‘dollarising’ and why does dollarising the value make a difference?
Dollarising means calculating the impact of your product to the customer in financial terms. It requires you to do some research about your customer. This could include:
- How much they are currently spending with their existing supplier, and how you can help them reduce that cost.
- The total cost of using your solution (compared to the total cost of using a less comprehensive solution with less functionality). For example, what’s included in your solution and what would they actually have to paying for the add-ons if they use an alternative?
- The increased efficiency they will derive in their business, and crucially what this means financially. For example, how many more sales their salesman can expect to make if they use your labour-saving software.
Let’s bring this to life with an example.
If you’re selling ice-creams to holiday makers then maybe dollarising this transaction isn’t the right plan of attack! But if you’re selling better refrigerators to the guys who are selling ice-creams to holiday makers, then it’s a key thing to focus on. If your refrigerators can hold more ice-creams, and run more efficiently, then there are a few ways in which you can dollarise this value.
- Find out how much margin they make per ice-cream sold. In simple terms, if they can hold more (and then sell more) ice-cream, how much is that worth to them at busy periods? If they make a margin of 50p per ice-cream, and your system can enable them to hold (and therefore sell) 25% more stock, what is that worth to them in real terms every month?
- Work out what it costs to run the refrigerator they are currently using, and contrast it against what it costs to run your energy efficient refrigerator. Then calculate what this would save them over a fixed period (typically a month). If your refrigerator reduces their electricity bill by £40/month, then by switching to you, it’s like adding 80 ice-creams to their sales each month with no extra effort.
Suddenly, something they may not have thought about becomes important and significant to them.
Sounds obvious doesn’t it? Most sales people will set out their benefits of their product or service, but I wonder how many go to the trouble to work out the numbers and present them back in real terms to the customer.
By Andy Coughlin, who works with companies in the UK, US and Middle East, helping them deliver consistently high performance under pressure.