Outcome-based selling – Change the way you present disruptive technologies

Outcome-based selling – Change the way you present disruptive technologies

In 2008 I read an interesting article from Harvard Business  Review about “Value-Based Analysis” (VBA) and the consequences of adapting VBA in my sales methodology triggered the most remarkable growth in sales results I ever had - from selling £1m per year to £48m per year.

Since then, the concept has evolved, and VBA morphed into Outcome-Based selling.

For a long time, I knew how to capture customers’ attention (and budget), and it was important not to dwell too much on solutions or features but instead describe tangible, economic outcomes that my technology can enable.

VBA morphed into Outcome-based selling

But outcome-based selling goes further than just selling benefits, in short, you need to prove that an offering solves a business problem, but also to articulate why solving that business problem matters and how to quantify the benefits to the customer.

Sounds simple enough, but outcome-based selling is hard. It is not enough to arm yourself to the teeth with feature-based battle cards, but you need to know to draw the linear path from a business outcome to a specific technology initiative and how the product can further that initiative.

So how to do it?

In order to get to a point where I could take complex concepts down to specific outcomes and get customers rallying around it, I need to work with marketing, product development and after-sales to list the benefits and outcomes and make sure that everyone is involved in the process and agree. 

We started by systematically list all the use-case we bring our customers, then linked each use case with a clear business outcome and quantify each outcome with real impact for the customer. In the end, we describe how each quantified impact can be tracked in order to prove the delivery of the agreed business outcomes once the solution is live.

Because storytelling is key to sales it is also important to nicely put together case studies and describe how customers have benefited from the most important outcomes.

Make it easy for Buyers and Partners

After doing that work you may realize that few "outcomes" could be stitched together and define a standalone package that you or your partners can take to market. By defining a specific subset of benefits the solution may be easier to understand for the buyer or corresponds to a popular requirement for the industry you address.

In any case, having the complete list of benefits enables you and customers to define specific value propositions customized for them. Moreover, because the list of outcomes will certainly contain a mix of functional, operational and business outcomes, your champions (wherever he or she is in the structure) would be able to take your table of outcomes, metrics and trackers and write a business case which will include the type of outcomes that decision-makers are looking for and this at each level of the organisation.

Super Alignment

By agreeing with customers a clear Scope of Work including Benefits, Outcomes, Metrics and Monitoring of Metrics, it creates a clear blueprint between customers and the company. It also creates an important link between pre-sales and post-sales. The customer success team possess all elements needed for the customers to be successful. These blueprints might be re-visited and tuned every quarter by the success team to make sure they are still relevant.

In conclusion

I have only scratched the surface of outcome-based selling and I hope I have managed to show you how powerful the methodology is in challenging the status quo, in providing clear evidence of potential new benefits to customers and creating a clear alignment regarding the benefits and results.

Outcome-Based selling has been a revelation to me for many years – even though it was not called like this before – and should be a cracking tool for success in direct sales (warning! be prepared to provide ample of coaching to your salespeople for them to adopt and use well the technique). The concept is also very beneficial for managing indirect channels and I might write on the subject in my next blog.

In the meantime, have a great time with your prospects.