5 Best Ways to NOT Differentiate
Bryan McDonald
Fractional Consulting Expert | Double your revenue without doubling your workload. I help former executives make MORE MONEY than they did in corporate America. Is selling a problem? DM me to find out why it’s really not!
Differentiation is something that many organizations and sales professionals struggle with - whether they know it or not. If your sales aren't closing consistently enough or your feel that you don't have predictability in the sales process; a key are to look at is your differentiation. What many times causes this, is prospects can't tell the difference between your product or service offering vs. what else is offered in the marketplace.
Another way that this is experienced by organizations or sales professionals is that they keep saying or expressing things like: "prospects just don't realize how valuable we are!" and why don't people understand how we can help them!". So, what too many organizations do is they lean on these 5 ways to differentiate themselves and the bi-product is, they become event MORE like everyone else:
- "We care about our clients"
- "We have great customer service"
- "We are best in class"
- "We build relationships with our clients"
- "We always do what’s right by our clients"
The challenge with this list is that it is the lowest expectation that your prospects and clients request. It's the basic blocking and tackling that clients assume you are going to do and possess. The paradox with this is that when we hear other companies/professionals describe themselves this way, we tend to not believe them. Then, for some reason we tend to say "but that's true for me and my company!".
Wait......HUH!?
How can those 2 statements exist to be true at the same time?
There is a way to build differentiation in the marketplace where prospects can not only identify how you are completely different than their other choices but easily opt-in to choosing your product or service. What it also needs to do, is make people who may "look like prospects" but actually aren't opt-out of choosing your product or services. It needs to be almost polarizing, where with the same speed someone can say yes or no to being a prospect of yours. There should be as little to no middle ground as possible.
Sticking to the 5 ways above creates the largest middle ground there is and guarantees a strain on growth.
I am curious to learn more about how others differentiate themselves in the market. Comment below how you accomplish being "different"
Get control of your time! | Construction Operations Specialist | Trouble getting over $1M? | 15 years owning a $1 mil GC co. | Helping you to systematize to confidently step away from your business!
5 年You are totally on point with this one Bryan! So many people say they are different than their competition, but when asked to share specifically how they are different they don't have a really strong answer. It's essential to figure out what you do that no one else does and market that. "Good customer service" and "We care about our clients" are not good enough differentiations any more.
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5 年Great article, Bryan. As someone smart once said, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. So, in my opinion, is differentiation. I don’t think I can differentiate myself; I think the client does that. Based specifically on the evidence I provide that I can deliver some value for them. They can evaluate the value in their terms and decide. I don’t provide the exact same value for every client, though. There are some I won’t be able to help at all while others I can help a lot. Not sure if I answered your question but that’s what I thought about after reading your article. Cheers.
Durable Revenue Implementer | RTM Pioneer | Destroyer of Vanity Metrics
5 年To your point, it's hard for a buyer to know who to go with and why if they're all saying the same things. Companies make it hard to buy from them and then they wonder why no one is buying.