THE ASSOCIATE ADVANTAGE

The True Value of a Value Proposition

BY JOE MORELLI

JOE MORELLI

HUSTON PATTERSON PRINTERS VICE CHAIRMAN JMORELLI@HUSTONPATTERSON.COM Businesses of all kinds have been forced to pivot, adapt, and manage crisis situations as a regular occurSo, how can we as sales reps sell to a growing number of people who refuse to see us? rence throughout the past 14 months. As we all try to figure it out, each of us From a sales perspective, the core has tried to adapt in different ways. At principles of relationship building have certain times, I know I just felt like I was been turned upside down and may never treading water with bricks on my feet, return to normal. As we all look for the doing whatever I could to manage our best way to adapt in sales, the solutions business. The moment things started turnPAT SZANY AMERICAN CORRUGATED MACHINE CORP. to our problems could be hiding in plain ing better for us was when we circled back CHAIRMAN sight within our own organizations. to what has always brought us success— PSZANY@ACM-CORP.COM Several years ago, AICC partnered our value proposition. By pivoting the with Holly Green and her company, The delivery of our value proposition, we got Human Factor. During that time, she back to the core of our framework. Sales worked with numerous member and expert Mark Roberts from OTB Solutions Associate member companies, including believes a good value proposition is the key, ours at Huston Patterson. Throughout whether it is delivered in person or virtually. that process, she forced us to take a hard The people who can best figure out how look at our own company—the “business to deliver their value proposition virtually GREG JONES SUN AUTOMATION GROUP of our business” is the way she described it. will be the winners. Several months ago, I SECRETARY During that process, she asked us to come spoke about the adaptations sales reps can

GREG.JONES@SUNAUTOMATION.COM up with a value proposition, or a statement make to make themselves relevant during of innovation, service, or feature intended the pandemic. I mentioned that embracing to make us attractive to our client base. technology and the benefits it allows, The clarity it brought to our organization combined with the old-school relationship was great. Everything we did as a company tactics, can help maintain relationships or during those years, we did with our value even strengthen them during this challengproposition as our framework. ing time. Wrapping those new techniques Then COVID-19 happened. into our current value proposition is key for TIM CONNELL According to McKinsey & Company us as we start to see the light at the end of A.G. STACKER INC. DIRECTOR research, 70%–80% of B2B decision- this tunnel. TCONNELL@AGSTACKER.COM makers prefer remote human interactions A good value proposition is key to or digital self-service. My first reaction any business. Adapting and pivoting the to that statistic is that it seems like an delivery of the value proposition will be incredibly high percentage! The article, crucial in the next generation of sales for however, details the reasoning behind it. all of us if we want to continue to thrive Safety and cost-savings are two obvious in years to come. reasons why they detail the need to stay remote or visitor-free, but the biggest reason DAVE BURGESS cited is efficiency of their workforce. The JB MACHINERY IMMEDIATE PAST CHAIRMAN study shows U.S. companies are 10% more

DBURGESS@JBMACHINERY.COM effective with their COVID-adapted model. Joe Morelli is vice president of sales and marketing for Huston Patterson Printers and is vice chairman of AICC’s Associate board.

Machinery and Handling for the Corrugated Board Industry