Too Small To Differentiate Against a Giant?

Think again. You are NEVER too small to compete against anyone! Which is why I LOVED this latest story about how Best Buy, the electronics retailer who was on the verge of banktrupcy is actually growing because of a key differentiator against their giant competitor Amazon (who I love also!). Here’s the story:

When You Can’t Compete On Price

In 2012, Best Buy was on the verge of closing thanks to a sex-scandal a-la-CEO. You know, the kind that shut Harvey Weinstein down for good. Not only that, even if that stink went away, their prices for the same products were 15x higher than that of Amazon’s! How on earth do you come back from that? This is such a huge lesson for my clients who are either daunted by competitors who price cut or the opposite, who insist on positioning on being the lowest price! Leave price alone when it comes to your differentiator. There’s a better way.

The Consumer’s Unmet Need

When I speak, the audience often asks me: “Well, you’ve told us we can’t position on price, well we have no technology so what DO we say to make ourselves different than the next guy?” And I ask them this simple question: “What is your target customer’s pain?”, “what is an unmet or unresolved problem they have in their industry that your company can solve for them?” That is all there is to it. In fact, it was the exact question that Best Buy asked themselves. They developed a secret weapon of an army of IT support that Amazon didn’t have and couldn’t offer. This army was aptly called ‘The Geek Squad’. I see them everywhere in my city. I’m sure you do too.

Results of Niching On Pain

Well, let me tell you, unlike most retailers who are crying their eyes out in the face of Amazon’s unstoppable growth, Best Buy has somehow continued to grow, beating earnings predictions for 22 consecutive quarters and quadrupling stock! That’s how most pain based niching and messaging works. It is a sure thing.

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You know that feeling of waiting…waiting to hear back from that buyer you had a meeting with months ago…he said he loved your service and would get other people on board and call you back. Well you may be in for a long wait. Most businesses I meet have experienced long months maybe even years of waiting before they ever closed a single sale, even those who had had amazing sales meetings with corporate buyers! It is one of the biggest complaints I hear from sales teams..this long long time lag from ‘Hello’ to ‘Yes’. But I’m about to change all of that for you right now. I’m going to stop you from the endless wait to hear back and to finally close the sale that’s going to mean the difference between making your numbers this year and potential disaster! I should know, I’ve spent 20 years working for giant Corporations like Pepsi, Pizza Hut, Frito-Lay and Smirnoff granting sales meetings to countless vendors who could NEVER close. Working for such sexy brands, I was pitched countless times for decades and I learned a thing or two. Now, I teach companies how to stop wasting time and money on the waiting game and how to close the sale quicker with a corporation. That’s why I created my latest brainchild:

JOIN ME THURSDAY, AUGUST 16TH FOR THIS FREE WEBINAR I'M HOSTING!

Chala Dincoy is the CEO and Founder of The Repositioning Expert (division of Coachtactics). She’s a Marketing Strategist who helps professional service companies change their messaging to attract more decision makers. In her former life, Chala was an award winning marketer at companies such as Pepsi, Pizza Hut, Frito Lay, Diageo, Playtex and BIC Inc for 20 years. Now she’s a marketing consultant, the author of Gentle Marketing: A Gentle Way To Attract Loads Of Clients, and How To Win Friends the Way Apple Wins Customers. In addition, Chala is a regularly featured expert on major television networks such as ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox,  as well as a popular speaker at International conferences.