Value Merchants

In this summary you will learn

• What three basic sales approaches dominate today’s business-to-business (B2B) marketplace
• Why many B2B suppliers base their sales on price, not value
• Why such companies and their salespeople should become “value merchants”
• How to sell the value of your product to your B2B customers

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Why you should read Value Merchants

Too often, businesses that sell to other businesses find it nearly impossible to convince their customers that their products deliver superior value. This usually means that they base their sales pitches on price and that they don’t know what their customers truly value. Is that the case at your company? If so, marketing professors James C. Anderson, Nirmalya Kumar and James A. Narus have a solution: Focus your product development, marketing, branding, pricing and sales activities strictly on value – and not on being a low price leader. You cannot make an equitable return on your products if your salespeople always conduct fire sales. Wouldn’t it be great to end the B2B price wars? Now you can. That’s where this savvy book comes into play. getAbstract recommends it to company executives, including sales managers and marketing managers, who are willing to do the research and analysis necessary to sell their products on the basis of true proven value, and not as price-cut, run-of-the-mill Brand X commodities.

About the Authors

James C. Anderson, Nirmalya Kumar and James A. Narus all teach marketing: Anderson at Northwestern University, Kumar at London Business School and Narus at Wake Forest University.