How to Stand Out From the Competition (When Everyone's The Same)

Has your client ever said something like, you're too expensive or I can get it cheaper or better somewhere else? What are you supposed to say to that? Especially if you agree with them? Unfortunately, most businesses blend in with the competition, not stand out. They use generic value propositions that are really kind of meaningless and mostly identical to their competitors. And even if you have some truly innovative solutions, it won't be long before they're copied and the markets are only getting more saturated. There are challenger brands launching every single day. You just can't rely on your marketing alone for messaging and talk tracks. It's up to you to figure out how to differentiate your solutions in this market of sameness and give your client a reason to choose you over everyone else. And that's what we're talking about in this episode of the Camp Club podcast. So sit tight. I will be right back. Welcome back, heroes. I'm your host Warwick Brown, and I've made it my mission to help busy key account managers get one step ahead. So the topic of how to differentiate yourself came to me from a subscriber. So thank you for that little note. I appreciate it because it did get me thinking about, well, how do we combat this challenge of trying to differentiate ourselves when it really is a struggle? Now think about this. When the clients talk price, what they really mean is value. And value to them, not not value to everybody else. A single value proposition can't appeal to all of your clients as key account managers and sales leads. We need to give each client a customized combination of benefits and a price that appeals to them. It's kind of that simple. A differentiated value proposition is the very first step in the process of transforming ideas into tangible results. So what does that look like? Let's talk about the process. Number one, you want to start with an objective. What does your client want to achieve? Number two is the issue or issues. What are the processes, infrastructure, or performance gaps that prevent your client achieving their stated goals? Number three is opportunity. Identify the opportunities that can close those performance gaps. Step four is Key questions what do you need to know? Pros, Cons? Assumptions? Missing information? Write down all the questions you need answers to. Next step Number five is supporting data. Assemble and review the data to validate your assumptions, to set targets and establish measurements. How you'll know when you succeed. Number six is to answer those key questions. So that's when you get a dive deep into the research. You want to consult your internal sources. You want to review benchmarks. You want to review the data. You want to formally review the results and revise your objectives if you need to. Number seven is propose solutions. This is where the, this is a culmination of all those previous steps where you've looked at your objectives, you've looked at issues, opportunities, you've answered questions, you've got the evidence and the data. It's time to bring all of that together to identify the improvement opportunities. And they can be either incremental, meaning small, they can be breakthrough, meaning they help your client get to the next level, or they can be game changing, which they are completely transformative. They're going to completely shift the dynamic and the nature and the direction of the business. So they're kind of the three levels of solutions you might be thinking about. And then number eight is a cost benefit risk assessment. You want to think about how much time is involved, how much budget and resources are required to achieve the outcomes, you know the solutions that you're looking to implement. Does the return on investment provide enough benefits to make your suggestions worth pursuing? And if they do well, what are the risks? You know what, what might prevent you from achieving those results? How are you going to avoid those risks? And if they do eventuate, what's your worst case scenario? How are you going to respond to that? And finally, you want to have detailed recommendations. So at the end of all of this, you want to provide your final recommendations and next steps. That's sort of a nine part process to building a value proposition. I must give credit to the book Maximizing Value Propositions to Increase Project Success Rates because that's where I have adapted those steps for you. And I think they're really valuable and it's a really great way to think about value propositions. None of this is related to product development. None of this is related to delivery of your solutions. This is really getting at the heart of what your client needs. Reviewing all the data, uncovering all the opportunities, finding the solutions, evaluating the risk, and then coming up with recommendations. That is a value proposition and that is something that nobody else is doing because it's between you and your client. So you've got your value proposition. Let's double down on maximizing differentiation. Now we don't control what product features are released, but we do control how our clients perceive the benefits. And that's the secret to differentiate your value and really stand out. Regardless of everybody else's features, regardless of everybody else's price point points. Everyone else may have all the same stuff, but they don't have you. And everybody doesn't know your client as well as you do. Now, a value proposition may be enough. You know that that may get your client super excited and super engaged and very clear that you are very different to the competition. But you can take it a step further by considering these additional steps to maximize differentiation. Take a look at the jobs to be done, the issues and opportunities, and what are a priority for your client. Think about unresolved pains and unrealized gains. Are there things that your client has overlooked or put on the back burner that they need to refocus on? When you come up with these jobs gains and pains, focus on no more than three. We're trying to be laser focused here. Go for those that you know you can do something about and the ones that have the highest potential payback. Now go beyond functional needs. Explore those emotional ease of doing business needs. You know, like decreased hassles, reduced effort, time savings, reduced risk, reduced anxiety. Those are very important to your individual stakeholders and they can be a very big differentiating factor. Target the metrics that matter. You want to align with how your client measures success, not how you measure success. Another way to differentiate yourself is to create a sales value chain. Explain to your clients how your solution positively impacts individual departments, entire business units and the entire organization. Show them how you provide value top down, bottom up, and everything in between. Find executive sponsors to gain support for your ideas. This is going to improve your visibility. It's going to help you differentiate your value with decision makers because they're the ones that decide whether you remain a supplier or not. And it's going to help you get things done. Also, dig into how your client really uses your solutions because you don't know necessarily all the details of who uses it, when they use it, where they use it, why they use it. Going that granular, that deep into the realities of the implementation of your solution across your client's business might unlock or uncover different use cases and different opportunities than you were expecting. And my last tip to differentiate your value is to document all your high potential ideas and and share progress with management. Don't do invisible work. Clients have very short memories and you need to regularly remind them of all the value that you're creating so that they do see you as different and distinct from your competitors. If you customize your value proposition and then you apply these additional differentiation steps, your client is not even going to think about competitors. Remember, your goal isn't to be the best. Your goal is to be the preferred. When you think about it in that context, it makes all, all the difference to how you approach differentiation. It frees you from worrying about competitors, from stressing about trying to be like for like to running your own race. And I think that's so important when you're trying to build trust, credibility, authority and loyalty with your customers. So before I wrap things up, it is or was, depending when you're listening to this World Letter writing day on September 1, I have handwritten the introduction to the Show Notes to the Podcast, so you can check that out@tkcpodcast.com 016 now. Fun fact about me, There was a time when I was super, super into penmanship. I used it. It was a hobby of mine. I wanted to try and improve my cursive writing because my handwriting was a mess and I was kind of obsessed with researching, you know, 19th, 18th century penmanship styles. So for fun, I'm going to include in the show Notes as a little download for you Palmer's Penmanship Budget containing a complete course of instruction in the most practical and popular system of business writing now extant. It's from, you know, back in the day before typewriters and computers, if you had excellent penmanship, you actually earned a decent living and were in very high demand because you could write all the ledgers and the books very neatly or the contracts. So penmanship at one point in time was a very desirable skill. Now, even if you're not into penmanship and handwriting, this download of Palmer's Penmanship Budget is worth reading because it's just a lovely piece of archival history from, you know, the early 20th century. So that's a wrap. Heroes. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode all about how to differentiate yourself and your solutions. I've been your host, Warwick Brown. Thank you so much for listening to the Chem Club podcast and I'll see you for another episode real soon. Bye for now.