Recently, in a discussion with a Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) from a Fortune 500 company, we heard some terrific advice about selling value. Think about it - that's like the fox giving the hen advice on how to get out of the henhouse!

It was a fascinating situation. He was a newly hired CPO charged with restructuring and strengthening the procurement department. At the same time, the company's sales team was one of our clients, and they were working to teach their people how to sell their value more effectively. Simply said, they wanted to buy low but couldn't afford to sell there.

He made it clear that the intent of his procurement organization was to help drive down costs in the business by buying goods and services at the lowest possible prices; that his people would never buy value; that he had trained them to be aggressive negotiators; and that there were monetary incentives in place to reinforce this behavior. What's a value oriented sales organization supposed to do now?

His response to that question was, "Align with the line," meaning get out in the organization, identify business opportunities and issues, and show line leaders how you can help them do better business. He said, "We (procurement) will never buy value. That's not our role. We are there to drive costs down. That doesn't mean we (the company) would never buy value. In fact, procurement would never stand in the way of a line executive who felt they had identified the business solution they needed."

In his mind, it's up to us. We can sell to procurement and focus on price, or we can sell to the line and focus on business value. It may not always be so simple, as we know we have to sell effectively at all levels, but in this era of commoditization, his advice is timely and welcome.