Building the Business Case with Dick Thomas

Dick Thomas is a sales consultant and founder of RW Consulting. He has over 25 years of experience in sales and has sold the largest deals in the history of four different companies. In this conversation with John McMahon, Dick Thomas emphasizes the importance of quantifying the value a solution brings to a customer in order to drive bigger deals. He talks about how salespeople can differentiate themselves and gain access to higher levels in an organization by focusing on solving business problems and showcasing the value of the solution. Thomas outlines four major components of selling business value: the value pyramid, gold miner discovery, value-based demo, and the business case ROI model. These strategies equip salespeople with an unfair competitive advantage and position them as trusted business partners for their customers. Tune in to this episode of Revenue Builders for specific strategies, real-life anecdotes and inspiration on selling on business value. HERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT [00:03:00] Importance of quantifying the value of a solution [00:06:11] Breakdown of the major components of selling business value [00:06:35] Value pyramid and its importance in understanding the prospect's business [00:08:46] How to build a value pyramid and prioritize prospects [00:11:24] Where to find information for the value pyramid [00:15:19] Importance of gold miner discovery in uncovering pain points [00:34:14] How to get the customer to discuss pain points [00:36:46] The value of a value-based demo [00:40:56] Importance of the business case and ROI model [00:46:08] Difference between operational value and business impact [00:56:03] Unfair competitive advantage from building value pyramids [00:56:12] Differentiation as a business partner and dealing with procurement [00:57:13] Negotiating discounts and preserving solution functionality HIGHLIGHT QUOTES [00:06:11] Dick Thomas: “There's four major components [people need to go into selling business value]. One is the value pyramid. That's where you gain a deep understanding of prospects' business. The second, I call it gold miner discovery because it's like swinging a pick and you got to discover down to annualized dollars. The third is a value based demo, which is an interesting methodology to discover and quantify value during the demo itself and actually confirm it with the customer and the last is the business case ROI model, comprehensive business case with an ROI model.” [00:55:27] John McMahon: “That's how they sold in the future. They weren't just doing demos to do demos. They weren't just getting meetings to get meetings. They were doing value pyramids everywhere they went. In fact, I remember going to a meeting in London and the team did such an effective job of discovery and building the value pyramid that one customer in the room banged his fist on the table and said, ‘where did you get this type of information?’” Learn more about Dick Thomas through this link. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dick-thomas-15a01112/ Website: https://www.rwtsalesconsulting.com/