The characteristic of ethical products or services, such as medical practice, expert outsourcing, consulting and innovation, is that they cannot be sold, they need to be bought.
Approaching a possible buyer of ethical products/services requires awakening her/his attention with a value proposition that allows her/him to have the control of the situation.
This requires having the necessary information of the benefits of the solution proposed, which has to be necessarily differentiated, of the objective value to solve an objective problem, and of the subjective value which deals with the perception of the problem and the value of the solution.
Therefore, when a sales process of ethical products/services begins, what has to be done is the necessary “intelligence work” to have a complete picture of the needs and people involved.
The first communication, when awakening the interest of the prospects, needs to give the recipient a complete picture of the value proposition which, paradoxically, needs to be ambiguous in order to allow them to “develop their own solution” based on the proposal.
That is why ethical products cannot be sold. What needs to be done is to make a value proposition that includes:
1) An ambiguous “what for”, so the prospect can deposit her/his needs in it.
2) An evident “how” to make the benefits tangible.
3) A “fuzzy” “what” to allow adapting the value proposed to the needs of the client.
After the value proposition has been posed it is necessary to continue building the relationship. Pre-diagnoses are a useful tool in this marketing process. They allow defining the possibilities of a business and at the same time they expand such possibilities.
The first step in “ethical products/services” selling is based on the final value proposition. This requires doing the necessary business intelligence.