Scientific Selling: Deals That Close and Products That Sell

Scientific segmentation--marketing to specific groups in your customer base, based on data--is a powerful approach that can transform your marketing strategy. In segmentation, individuals can be grouped according to the fundamental needs and attitudes that drive their purchase / consumption / usage decisions. In fact, your marketing planning process may well be revolutionized by some of the findings you uncover from your segmentation process. From there, with a strong marketing position and an executable marketing mix strategy, the process can proceed to the next step: scientific selling.

This is the last step of your data transformation, and it must be done with this logic in mind: Selling excellence will not happen without a thorough segmentation process and a robust marketing planning process. Too many companies attempt to improve their level of commercial excellence without first conducting preliminary exercises on segmentation and pricing analytics.

Scientific selling is all about leveraging the power of your existing data to create fact-based selling strategies and tactics. It’s about extracting the power of your data insights to guide the actions of your commercial assets and resources. As such, it requires that you become laser-focused on critical customer segments and on data-derived sales opportunities

Here are some of the critical benefits of scientific selling

1. Deals that close: Not only will your salesforce spend more time in front of the right account and with the most promising prospects, they will also be equipped with the right facts, the right buying data and data-derived pricing recommendations. The conversations with customers will be based on real historical data and anchored in rational exchanges. With the right data in their hands, your sales force will be able to avoid making uneducated decisions and falling into buyer negotiation traps. They will, in fact, be better equipped than the buyers in front of them, which will result in a greater ratio of deals that close and an increase in your win/loss ratio.
2. Products that sell: Armed with recommendations for optimized product offerings, potential product bundles and unique adjacent services, the right offering is presented to your customers at the right time and the right price. Internally, this level of science also benefits your Sales & Operation Planning (S&OP). It will allow you to have the right inventory at the right place and at the right time.
3. Prices that win: Scientific selling is grounded in strong pricing analytics and in deep pricing optimization activities. Guessing in the price-setting process disappears. Pricing recommendations are based on data from similar peer groups, historical buying patterns and your population sensitivity and elasticity analysis. Pricing accuracy dramatically improves, leading to more pricing power in front of customers.
4. Happy customers: Scientific segmentation and scientific selling increase your customers’ perceptions about the capabilities of your sales force. Gone is the traditional level of uncertainty in the buyer-seller exchanges and in price negotiations. Because your sales force is well prepared with real-time data for specific customers, discussions are more relevant and rational. Customer satisfaction with the transactional process increases and so does the confidence of your sales force.

The power is in your data. Leveraging that power to equip your sales force with science-driven decision support allows you to capture tremendous value. Your Excel spreadsheets and your business intelligence tools cannot provide you with this level of scientific sophistication. Are you ready to outperform your competition and turn your sales force into confident sellers? Scientific selling is the future of the commercial excellence field.

The best way to harness all this data is through a technology called configure, price, quote (CPQ) software -- backed by AI.  AI is the only way to analyze and extrapolate actionable insights from the mounds of data businesses have today.  

Stephan Liozu is the Founder of Value Innoruption Advisors and specializes in disruptive approaches in innovation, pricing and value management. He earned his PhD in Management from Case Western Reserve University and can be reached at sliozu@case.edu.