You’ve heard of ABC: Always Be Closing.

Let me tell you something: The days of ABC are gone. It’s closed. ABC is now ABV: Always Bring Value.

I want you to be thinking about this in every conversation you have. It is always about bringing value.

Let’s walk through the 10 things you need to be doing right now to be bringing value, because you will not be accomplishing this through ABC.

1. Ask More Questions

You create value by actually understanding what the customer is looking for. You understand what the customer is looking for not by telling them, but by asking them questions.

People who live by ABV are the ones who ask the most questions. Be sure to ask more questions of your customers.

2. Bring Industry Insights

Customers do not know what they do not know. We all live in some sort of an echo chamber.

You can bring value to your customers by sharing with them insights and information they are not tuned in on. This is a great way to bring value and be seen as a sales leader, too.

3. Be Seen as the SME

When you are seen as the subject matter expert, or SME, doors open for you.

If you are new in your business and not as well-known, you cannot be the SME right away and that is okay. You may not be the SME, but you are going to connect your customers to the SME. You are going to help get the SME to them.

Ultimately, you want to become the SME in your industry.

4. Curious About Everything

I love working with companies where I get to tour their manufacturing facility, warehouses, retail stores — wherever. I am curious about everything and asking questions. I am always exploring. What does this do?

It helps me uncover new information and new insights. What does this do? It allows me to be an SME.

Being curious about everything gives me more industry insights I can share and allows me to ask more questions.

It is amazing how much more I will be able to learn and in turn, I can bring more value.

5. Seek Different Solutions

Many times, we bring the best value by not helping the customer buy what they think they want to buy, but rather by helping them buy what they need to buy. You can accomplish this by seeking different solutions.

The different solution might be a different outcome that they are looking for, and that is what I am going to help drive them towards.

It is amazing how much long-term value we create when we seek a different solution. We help the customer and as a result, they gain a greater appreciation for us.

6. Customer Focused

I cannot bring value unless I am customer focused. The value the customer is looking for is different than the value somebody else is looking for.

The only way I am going to know the difference is if I am absolutely focused in on my customer.

What are the insights the customer is sharing with me? I need to be working with my customer, exploring them and being curious about them. I am actively trying to dig down deep with my customer.

7. Think Beyond the Customer

When I say to think beyond the customer, I want you to be thinking:

• Who are the other players in their competitive set?
• Who are the others in the industry?
• What are the other outlying industries?
• What are those other pieces out there I may not be privy to yet?

When I think beyond the customer, I am moving into an industry perspective. This goes back to my point in number two: Bring Industry Insights.

I am thinking about what this customer is going to look like five years from now and what they looked like five years ago. What can I learn from this change? How can I help them? It’s about looking at customers in different ways. It’s putting on a different pair of glasses to view your customer.

8. Know the Customer’s Supply Chain

I cannot stress this enough: You need to know the customer’s supply chain, both upstream and downstream.

I like to say that I want to know my customer’s customer’s customer.

I don’t care if it’s a product or a service. There is always a supply chain downstream but there is also a supply chain upstream.

For products, I think about where their raw materials are from. Where are they getting their learning?

For service businesses, I want to know how they grow their business. Where are they turning to for learning and so forth?

I want to know where the customer sits in the middle of a supply chain. I need to know both extremes.

9. Never Stop Learning

This point is essentially what we have been talking about in every one of these pieces. I am always learning, and I am always willing to share insights. I love sharing insights I have just learned with customers.

I love to share books I have read with customers — not just my book, either. I will routinely buy a couple copies and send out other people’s books to a few CEOs. Find new ways to bring value to your customers.

10. More Conversations

When I am always bringing value, people want to meet with me and have conversations with me. It is amazing and I love that people are always trying to get on my calendar.

What you want to do is have more conversations yourself. I am not only the recipient of conversations, but I am also the driver of conversations. I am continuously trying to have more conversations.

It is about preparing you to always be in a position to bring new insights. I want to share with my customers information they have never seen before.

If all I do is play back to them the exact same information they have been reading on the internet or in trade pubs, I am not bringing value or anything new.

My customers are smart. That means I have to be smarter than they are.

MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at [email protected].