Have You Heard the Secret?
There’s a secret in sales that you need to know. A secret so straightforward, yet so potent and up till now surprisingly little understood. Chances are your competitors don’t know it. I’m talking about ‘Win Themes™. Don’t be embarrassed if you’ve never heard the term; only those ‘in the know’ (which includes all my clients) really understand the concept and how to use it for remarkable results.
Win Themes
Win Themes™ are the intersection of your client’s priorities and your strengths. They’re the top 3 – 4 areas of overlap that create a sweet spot which translates into immediate client receptivity. Yes, it’s that simple. Win Themes™ are the messages that will be reinforced throughout your proposal, presentation and all interactions with the client. They compound your strengths and competitive advantages. They can only be built on a solid understanding of your client’s vision, mission, goals, priorities, initiatives and problems. They are your differentiators. They form the basis of your custom value proposition. For example, if your prospect desperately needs to increase profits but lacks resources, and your organization has expert resources with a track record of improving profits, then you have a Win Theme (and most likely a sale). Note: the opposite of a Win Theme™ approach is simply sharing everything your company can offer and hoping that your prospect can pull out what’s important to them.
Why So Powerful?
Once Win Themes™ are identified, tested, and expanded, they can be incorporated into proposals, presentations and other prospect interactions. Analyze your Win Themes™ in order of impact. Determine what ‘evidence’ can be offered to support each Win Theme™. Evidence might be a case study, customer testimonial or reference or a story that underscores your point. To test for strength and validity, have a neutral trusted advisor read through your proposal or listen to your presentation and tell you the top 3 things that stood out. Strong Win Themes™ will effectively lock out the competition.
A Sales Success Story
One of my clients was recently responding to a sizable RFP (request for proposal) doing a great job of answering each question. However, after reading through the entire response, there weren’t any ‘stand out’ points that the prospect could hold on to. Utilizing the Win Theme™ approach, we zeroed in on several prospect goals that were areas of strengths for my client’s company and bingo, we had our Win Themes™. My client re-purposed each answer, including the executive summary, finding creative ways to highlight and reinforce the Win Themes™ throughout the response. The result: a big sale and a new customer!
Shush…
Now that you know the secret, feel free to use it to enhance your close ratios. However, you might want to keep it hush-hush from your competitors.
As always, I love to hear about your sales successes. Please let me know how using Win Themes™ helped you land more business, especially super big TOP Line Accounts!
You can also let us know by leaving a comment.
Pipeliner CRM precisely empowers salespeople to win. Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.
Comments