Sales Differentiation – The Way Forward

It is becoming increasingly challenging to create differentiation. From a client’s perspective organizations, products and service and salespeople are all the same, so how do they create differentiation? By asking for a discount, a lower cost. It allows clients to justify why they bought from one supplier versus another. Other issues preventing differentiation are and not limited to:

·??????Products/services entering the commodity phase quicker due to shorter life cycles

·??????Spending too much time video conferencing

·??????Poorly trained salespeople

·??????Salespeople lacking courage.

An example of the last two points: Salespeople sending endless emails offering their products and services expecting prospective clients to respond. It would be wiser to do research on the organization and the person or persons to approach and tailor the approach, which might not be an email.

The word differentiation is used to show a difference between two alternatives whether organizations, products, or services and/or salespeople. It is meant to infer greater value and it is like the commonly used unique selling proposition, it has no value if it is from a salesperson’s perspective. Recently at a business function a high-profile federal politician used the word to describe their political party, but no one in the audience bought it. Clients are similar if they cannot see and preferably experience differentiation they won’t buy.?

A differentiation strategy needs to be client centric.

Is this simple, or is it? Organizations tend to believe differentiation can be created by:

Price or cost – This, as businesses are aware, can become a downward race to the bottom. It is 9% why clients buy.

Product/Service –The focus and considerable expense goes into making products and services superior compared to competitors, yet as so often happens competitors can easily copy and sell at a lower price.?Research has shown it is only 19% why clients buy.

Company brand and impact – This is usually in the domain of larger organizations but can be a huge cost and is only 19% why clients buy.

Salesperson interactions - In a business-to-business environment this is 53% why clients buy. The more competent the salesperson in terms of their skills, sales strategies and who they are personally will always win over their competitors.

Salespeople interactions alone outnumber the others combined.

For those who subscribe to our monthly sales articles or read these regularly know we developed Sales Competency Levels from Level 1 through to Level 6 for complex sales. The mean average is level 3. Creating a sales differentiation can begin at level 4.

If you would like a copy, email me directly [email protected] with the subject line ‘Competency Levels.’