If we're not careful as sales professionals, phrases like "partnering" and "selling value-added" will become clichés. Current purchasing strategies and company edicts force us into a mind-set that price is everything. Don't buy into this thinking unless you want to be replaced.

Value-added selling is not a cliché. It simply is a process and personal commitment that begins with the way you think. Discipline to add value on every call and personal improvement until the day you make your very last sales call are the keys to real value-added selling. As a manufacturer, this not only applies to calling on users and OEMs, but also your distributor partner.

The challenge with every customer and every sales call is to differentiate yourself, your products and your company from the competition. Determining what is unique about your products, your company values and yourself are the keys to success. You must have the discipline to determine these unique selling benefits before every call. Without this discipline, your sales calls will deteriorate to one-sided conversations about price only. Your value will be lost, and price will become the only determining factor for success.

When I started out as a sales trainee at TB Wood's 30 years ago, our VP of sales and marketing used to preach these words…"don't make a sales call unless you have something in your hand and something in your head." These words are simple, but challenging to a sales professional. "Something in your hand" need not be limited to literature. Demos, magazine articles, application stories or competitive literature, backed up by comparison data, all help differentiate your products. "Something in your head" is presenting your company values and illustrating support for products the customer may classify as a "commodity." Your personal value to the customer is shown through your integrity, product knowledge, training, and may be even problem solving techniques.

I remember being a "green" 25-year old salesman calling on Meier Transmission in Cleveland who had nine professional engineers as salesmen. They, obviously, knew much more than I could ever hope to know from an engineering standpoint. So my differentiation, in this case, centered around my ability to solve problems. Since the Meier salesmen "had no problems with Wood's," they could spend their time on engineering and selling new drives (what they liked). Wood's, therefore, had a reputation as "an easy company to do business with," and consequently, they picked Wood's drives whenever possible. Simply adding this personal value earned the business.

Selling value to users and OEMs is not limited to product benefits. The key question is, "What value-added services are they looking for today and three to five years from now?" This requires interviewing, asking questions and listening. The customer will tell you and give you clues to their expectations. With this knowledge, you can build your "value-added" sales presentation around the future.

In these economical times, companies are looking to lower cost. Sometimes these cost reductions can be realized in value-added benefits…but all things being equal, your company and personal values will earn you the business only if you are applying them. It's up to you to make the difference.