Which value piece is most important?

Which Value Piece Is Most Important?

Everyone wants to know the one thing that matters most to the customer. The truth? It’s not one thing.

In today’s Question of the Day, I break down why we live in a both/and world—not either/or. It’s not about being better or faster. It’s about being better and faster.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why focusing on a single value point can limit your results
• The reality that you don’t always know what matters most to each customer
• Why top performers check every box instead of guessing
• How delivering across multiple value pieces builds confidence and drives decisions

If you’ve been trying to simplify your value into one angle, this episode will challenge that thinking and help you expand how you show up for the customer.

Have a Question? - Submit your questions to chrish@nexstarnetwork.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to the question of the day. Today's question is from Chris in Massachusetts. And Chris asks, which value piece is the most important? Is it brand? Is it company? Is it me? Is it long-term savings? Is it peace of mind? And on and on and on. Which value piece is the most important? That is a great question. And I'm going to answer your question with a question first. Let me let me pose a scenario to you. As a company, would you rather be faster than the competition or better than the competition? Faster or better? It's a trick question because we live in a both and world. To be successful today, you have to be both faster and better. And let me give you a couple of examples, right? So does anybody remember? I think way back here, way back to when the internet was coming out, and there was this thing called askgeeves.com. Ask Jeeves.com. It was one of the first search engines. I don't know if it was the first search engine, but it was one of the first search engines, right? And so you would go to askjeeves.com. That's Jeeves J E E V E S, I think. Askjeeves.com. And it it still exists today. I was shocked that when I typed it in, that the website still exists, the search engine still exists. But I remember when the internet first came out going to askgeeves.com and it had like a little butler in the corner, and that butler was like there to serve you information, right? Like you could ask at anything and it would serve up websites for you. So they were one of the first search engines. So why doesn't anybody use askeves.com anymore? Because now everybody uses Google. We're even getting into like AI and Chat GPT, but like Google, Google really had the search engine footprint here for I mean over a generation. So how did Google surpass Ask Jeeves? Because they were first, but obviously they weren't also better. Now I'm gonna flip the example to another example. Think back to Kodak. Kodak for for you young'uns. Kodak was was pictures. Like film cameras, everything was Kodak. Kodak was the film industry, was pictures. Kodak actually developed the technology for digital pictures. They were the first to do it. And they were obviously better, but they decided to sit on it. So they weren't first to market. They sat on it. The reason they sat on it, well, because they made so much in film sales, they were scared that if they introduced that to the market, it was going to drastically cut into their film sales. And so they sat on it and they weren't first to market. They were better, they were the juggernaut of the industry, but they weren't first. Well, then other companies started coming up with the technology and introducing that into the market, and they beat them to the market. And Kodak, they scrambled, they tried to get their own digital pictures out there, digital cameras, but they were too late. They sat on it too long. And that began the downfall of Kodak. So you can't just be faster or just be better. You have to be both. Now, a third example, think of something like a Starbucks, right? Starbucks, by definition, is fast. You can go there and get a cup of coffee and get in and out in a couple of minutes. Even when the line is long, it moves pretty fast. You know you're not going to sit there forever for a cup of coffee. And it's generally good coffee. They have a good menu, they have a good product. So they're faster and better. We live in a both and world. We have to be faster and better. And so back to your question here. Your question was which value piece is the most important? Like, if I really got to focus on something, what do I got to focus on? And the answer is all of them. You have to focus on all of them. There's no silver bullet. There's no focus on that one thing and you'll get the sale most times. Like, there's no silver bullet, but there is a ton of golden BBs. Now, in my own experience, I remember early on in my sales career, I was in the automotive industry and we we sold the cars, but we also sold the additional products with them. We were unique in a sense in the auto industry because usually usually you have one person selling the car and then you have another person, an FI manager, that would sell the products with the car. We we did that all together, right? So I was responsible to sell the car, but then also sell the products. And we had a great product. We had this great lifetime service contract. It was a lifetime, literally a lifetime. There was no limit on years, no limit on miles. As long as you own the vehicle, you had that service contract, and it covered everything, covered everything. The engine, the transmission, the drive lines, and everything else. There was a couple of exceptions, such as like the actual wires, the actual sensors, seals and gaskets, because those start to leak. But like beyond that, like everything was covered. So like all the electronics in the vehicle, like it was all covered. It was a great product for anybody that was going to keep their vehicle for an extended period of time. And I sold Subarus, like everybody kept their vehicle for an extended period of time. So like it was a really good time for me. And it it even had some additional pieces, such as towing and roadside assistance, and rental reimbursement and gas services if you ran out of gas. Like, and so I got really good at asking great questions, great open-ended questions that tied into this product, because it would allow me then to seed plant this product. So I was really good at selling not just cars, but also cars with this product. I would ask questions like, How long do you plan on owning your next vehicle? And again, I worked at Subaru, so almost everybody said, till the wheels fall off, right? The rust will get it first. Because we were in Minnesota. And so that would open up an opportunity for me to seed plant that product, then, right? I would ask him questions like, How many miles per year do you typically drive? How many miles do you want to drive? I would ask him questions like, What did what did you like about your last vehicle? What didn't you like about your last vehicle? Now I had one particular customer, this this wonderful lady that I worked with and she was buying a Subaru. It was probably like her fourth or fifth Subaru. I don't, I don't remember, but but I remember everything just kind of lined up, right? Like she told me, yeah, I'm gonna keep this vehicle till the wheels fall off. Yeah, I drive a lot of miles and I don't want to have to worry about repairs. And her last car, the reason she was looking for one is because the wheels were literally falling off. Like the repairs were getting quite costly on this old Subaru that she had. And so repair costs were were adding up. And even when I walked her back to introduce her to service and set up her first oil change, like she already knew all of them because she'd done a bunch of service work there, right? And and so she she really didn't want to do more service work, and she wasn't doing the work herself either. And so, so like the stars seemed to align that this was absolutely going to sell a car and this lifetime service contract. Now I presented it, and to my shock, she said no. And so I dug in and I identified objections, and we worked through a number of objections, like the cost of it, etc. And I walked through like how it paid for itself and X amount of time, and I'm pretty sure like I got at least three no's, and and it was a respectful conversation. I wasn't like hammering on this lady, but like, but but I kept going back in because I was just I was shocked. Like this just seemed to be like, yeah, why wouldn't you? Like you're the you are the perfect customer for this, right? Like this solves every challenge you told me you had. And and she kept saying no, kept saying no, kept saying no, to the point where like I was exhausted. I I I I couldn't believe it seemed like the sure thing was turning into to a no. And so as I was about to just sign out the car without a service contract, she she looked down at the contract and she pointed at this bold section, these bolded words, and and she said, Oh, so it comes with towing as well. And I exhaustedly was like, Yeah, yeah, it comes with towing. And she goes, Oh, well, I'll take it then. And I was I was my jaw about hit the desk. Like I I I couldn't believe like I went through all these value pieces, I built all this value in the process, and the thing that pushed it across the finish line was, oh, it comes with towing as well. See, the the thing is, in hindsight, towing was the least valuable in my mind. Like nobody, nobody was buying this product because of the towing. And so I failed to bring it up, I failed to talk about it altogether. She looked at the contract and she saw it and brought it to my attention, and that was the thing that pushed it across the fishing line. All these other things that I thought were valuable that I thought were important obviously weren't as important to her. Didn't make sense in her mind. And I'm not saying my mind is right and hers is wrong. I'm just saying, like, we had different points of view on value, and so I never brought that up. Now, thankfully, she saw it herself, and then it moved forward anyways. But how many times, how many times have I not brought something up because I didn't think it was of value, and then I missed the sale, and then I go grumbling back to my manager, like, another price conscious customer. Like, how many times did that happen? And it wasn't really a price conscious customer, it was me failing to bring up all of the value ads of an item. I bet it's happened a lot. So the answer is all. You have to bring up all value pieces because all people are different. Now you can you can ask questions to identify what's important to them and what they see as valuable, but you you really don't know what the difference maker is going to be. And do you want to risk missing one of those items, not checking one of those boxes? Because you that's the key, is to maximize your results, you want to check all of those boxes. I want to build value in the company that we're the right company, and there's a number of pieces that go into that. How many years we've served customers, our customer reviews, our quality work, like do we guarantee our work, warranties on our like the company. We have to check that box. We have to check the box on the solution, right? Like they have a problem, we have the right solution. This solution solves the problems that they had, right? We have to check the box on time that we can do this in a timely manner, that we're gonna maximize their time because nobody wants to waste their time. We have to be both faster and better when it comes to time and quality. And probably the biggest box to check is you, you the individual, right? Because they already made a decision on the company, that's why they called the company. They saw the advertisement, the commercial, the the side of the van. They they saw all that. And the solution kind of speaks for itself. You you're the unknown here. Like, do they like you? People buy from people that they like. That's the hardest box to check is do they like you? And then beyond this, just checking the boxes, you also have to make this as tangible as possible. So saying that you do good quality work is not tangible. Like, I guess technically you could think you're checking the box of we're the right company, because I said we do good quality work. But how's the customer know that? They don't know that. And everybody says that, every one of your competitors says the same thing. Yeah, we do good quality work. Problem is they don't know until after the work is done. That's when they're gonna find out. But something like Google reviews, we have a 4.9 Google score with 3,000 reviews. That's tangible. That's something I can look at. That's something I can see. You're the right company and you do good quality work because the people have spoken. 3,000 people give you a rating of 4.9 or higher. That's the kind of experience you're gonna get. That's tangible, right? So you're not just checking the boxes, you're checking them and making them tangible that the customer can see it, they can feel it, they can experience it. They know that box is checked, not just verbally checked. So the answer to your question, all. And so you have to have a good, solid, thorough process, and you execute that process every customer, every time, to make sure that you're checking all those boxes as tangibly as possible. And then you're having a sales leader ride along and you're using a scorecard to evaluate your process. You're doing all of those things and constantly training to get better because there's always something you can get better at. So the answer is all. It's a both and world. You have to be all of those things to maximize your results. So that's today's question of the day. If you're enjoying question of the day, follow, share, and give a rating. Question of the day is on major streaming platforms. If you have a question, reach out to me either on social media or email. Both are going to be listed below in the show description. Let's get your questions answered. And if you're a next star member, schedule a call with me. Let's address this one-on-one and get very specific to your situation. I'm Coach Chris. We'll see you tomorrow.