Modern Business Magazine October 2016 | Page 22

MODERN SELLING Is your “unique selling proposition” creating value for your customers? By Robyn Haydon H ow are sales in your business right now? Are you winning the business you truly deserve to win? If not, you may have a value problem. Fixing this problem starts with changing the way we think about, and define, “business development”. The work of business development is to build value that customers can buy. 22 ModernBusiness October 2016 The work of sales and marketing is to go out and sell value, once it has been created. Sales and marketing are functions, while business development is an organisation-wide, cultural intention. Everyone in your business has a role to play in value creation, and therefore also in business development. When we are wondering why a sales or marketing effort hasn’t been successful, it is often because we aren’t investing in business development; we aren’t actually making a concerted effort to build commercial value that customers can buy. As a result, our sales and marketing teams are often