"The Theory of Everything" in B2B, High Tech Major Sales Engagements

After seeing the movie, " The Theory of Everything", and reading  Isaacson's biography of Einstein,  I wondered if it was possible to have a formula for success in high tech, B2B major sales engagements. While it is not as elegant as Einstein's theory of relativity, E=mc²     I would like to propose:

 S= CV (I+B+F+P) x #B + EC + CD.

Where S is for  Sales. CV is the Created Value made up of Insight, Business, Financial and Personal components.  This Created Value is then multiplied by the number (#) of Buyers.  Finally you add Emotional Commitment  and Competitive Differentiation.

Let's look at each of the components of the formula:
There are a lot of different types of sales: inside sales, outside sales, transactional, consultative, enterprise, B2B and B2C etc.  I believe it is difficult to have a success formula that works for all types. So for our purposes this formula is for Sales that are B2B, high tech and major sales engagements (high value, longer sales cycles team sells).

Created Value.  Selling today is not about articulating value.  It is about creating value for the customer/prospect. You need to create four types of value to be successful.  First is Insight which is a new perspective or way of looking at the business challenge. Second is the specific value to the Business that this solution brings. Increased customer satisfaction, market share etc.  The third type of value is Financial value.  The specific financial savings/return this solution brings.  This is typically expressed in terms of Return on Investment (ROI) and/or Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The fourth type of value, often neglected is the Personal value that this solution brings to each of the buyers.  This can be value in terms of quality of life, job satisfaction upward mobility etc.

Once you have totaled the created value you need to multiply it by the number # of Buyers.  Today's companies are risk adverse and large sales decisions are more often made by a team of consensus buyers.  To be successful the salesperson needs to create value for each of these consensus buyers.

It is not enough to create value for all of the buyers.  The salesperson must Emotionally Connect with each of them. Connect the buyers, personally, to the pain of the challenge and the reward of the solution.  This creates the personal motivation to buy.

If you do not add the final component, Competitive Differentiation you are in great danger of losing the sale after doing all the work!.  So far you have created the value for each of the buyers in such a way so as to get them to commit to acting. In the final step, and all through out this process you need to make sure you are leading/guiding them to your unique solution. Otherwise all you have done is to set the competition up to steal the sale.