Avoid competing on price alone by competing on Customer Value. You do this through VALUE SELLING.

What is VALUE SELLING and how do you employ it?

First, understand the difference between price and value.

Price is the amount of money paid for goods and services. It's the amount of money changing hands in the buying-selling transaction.

Value, to the customer, is the satisfaction of purchase requirements at the lowest total cost of acquisition, ownership, and use.

This understanding of Customer Value doesn't ignore price. Rather, it puts it into proper perspective. Yes, price is a cost to the customer, but it's only one cost among others. There are costs involved in the specifying, sourcing, and buying process, costs of using, holding, maintaining, and replacing what the customer buys. And there are costs of supplier quality, delivery, and support failures, which can easily involve customer costs greater than all other costs combined.

VALUE SELLING is the concept and dicipline that relates what you sell to customer purchase requirements. And it relates them to demonstrate cost effectiveness.

What is cost effectiveness?

Being cost effective means that what you sell:

• reduces cost to a customer - assured availability and superior technical support cut labor, material, and capital outlay
• avoids cost to the customer - better quality and reliability eliminate excesses in existing customer processes
• offsets cost by increasing revenue or improving customer cash flow - creative engineering and management support expand customer market or product applications and improve inventory turnover

Let me help you apply these concepts through my tried and proven strategies and techniques. To get started, here's what I suggest. Telephone, fax, or e-mail me, identifying what you see as a sales problem or opportunity, and your assessment of its scope and significance. When I hear from you, we can discuss these issues in some detail. I will tell you my opinions and recommendations, and at no charge. If you believe I can be helpful, we can discuss, specifically, the how-to's. I work either on a project or retainer basis. My fee structure is either at a fixed price or at a fixed time-related rate basis. If travel is involved, there are additional transportation and lodging expenses charged.