Selling with Data - #41 - Unlocking competitive edge

I cringe whenever I hear a leader fire up their teams with the platitude "we are the best team." Under my breath I ask myself: What makes their team better than their competition? Has the team done anything to deserve the title "the best" or is it an empty statement used in attempt to make their team feel good? In most cases, the words are empty.

Many leaders aren't doing anything to differentiate their team from their competition. Most leaders hire from similar talent pools using the same recruiters, execute actions based on similar experiences and play books, take a similar approach to skill building and enablement, and use the same technology as their competitors.

If you are a leader who tells your team how they are the best, you need to be able to back that up. What makes your team the best? When you switch jobs, is your new team the best and your old team not the best anymore? If you asked, “why are we the best?” would anyone know what you are doing that makes you better than the competition?

This idea might hurt. Having spent time in different companies, though, I’ve seen amazing people everywhere and I have yet to meet a leader who tells their team they are just like everyone else. In the case where the leader is doing something exceptional and unique, I have found that it is typically short lived, because as people leave, they take what worked from one company to their next – eliminating the competitive advantage.

To gain a competitive edge, leaders need to continue to incubate and scale innovation to develop better ways to do things than anyone else. As customers and market conditions change, the teams that adapt faster than their competition gain a competitive advantage until the competition is able to catch up.

A few days ago, McKinsey released their B2B Pulse report "The multiplier effect: How B2B winners grow." This year's report surveyed more than 3,800 decision makers across 13 countries to identify what winning teams are doing differently. The survey results are summarized in the article, organized around 5 strategies to multiply growth - (1) advanced sales tool usage, (2) highly personalized marketing, (3) hybrid sales teams and capabilities, (4) tailored strategies on third-party marketplaces, and (5) already invested in owned marketplace.

Here are my top 5 takeaways from the report.

1. Market share winners are increasing their innovation investment. I loved this sentence "Companies can’t merely experiment with omni-channel and personalization. Our research found they must be all in, continuing to invest and experiment even amid uncertain macroeconomic conditions." Companies growing market share are investing in technology, hybrid selling motions and personalization, not through a project or experiment, but in the fiber of their opereations. Taking a let’s wait and see?approach to innovation is no longer enough.
2. B2B e-commerce has taken the lead as the most effective sales channel.?B2B e-commerce is now rated ahead of in-person, video conference, email and telephone sales. Before you minimize this to small orders (orders under $10k), the McKinsey survey says customers are increasingly willing to spend big on e-commerce transactions. According to the report, "Similar to last year, about 70 percent of decision makers are prepared to spend up to $500,000 on a single e-commerce transaction." Customers want the option to research on their own and complete the order on a marketplace without talking to a person.
3. There isn't a single sales route. Customers expect an evenly divided mix of traditional, remote and self-service channels, such as face-to-face sellers, inside sales and e-commerce. The study says, "Omni-channel B2B sales models—with a mix of equally important human and digital channels and with e-commerce at the center of them all, are now permanent." Companies that increased hybrid sales teams by more than 10 percent are 79 percent more likely to be market share winners. Wow, 79% more!
4. Omni-channel requires orchestrating the B2B buying experience across routes to market. Customers expect intuitive transitions across channels to support their journey. They expect their history to be known and don't expect to repeat the same information to the company multiple times just because they are dealing with a different route.
5. Winning B2B companies invest in marketing personalization. B2B companies increasing market share have moved beyond account-based marketing and are using hyper-personalization in their outreach. Hyper-personalization provides unique messages to individual decision makers based on their specific needs, profile, behaviors and interactions—both past and predictive.

How many of the five strategic areas is your team executing on? If you aren't doing all five, what are you doing to create a competitive advantage and make your team "the best?" Please leave your comments below.

Good selling.