How to differentiate from your competitiors

Differentiating your business from competitors requires a blend of effective pricing, communication, and service quality. The episode explores the impact of perceived value, ethical selling practices, and client feedback on establishing a sustainable competitive advantage. 
• Importance of perceived value in pricing 
• Control over quality and customer service 
• Role of communication in building trust 
• Differentiating through ethical sales practices 
• Emphasising consultancy over sales tactics 
• Need for ongoing client feedback to improve service

Chapters

• 0:13 Standing Out From Competitors in Business
• 11:40 Differentiating From Competitors in Business
• 19:10 Understanding Client Needs for Better Competitiveness

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:13

One of the most important aspects of any business is how we differentiate ourselves from our competitors, and I know for a lot of people, that is something that they spend a fair bit of time on, and what I want to do in this podcast is just present some ideas. Really, depending upon what you're doing, they may or may not be relevant, but hopefully they will get you thinking about what you can do within your own business to make yourself separate from your competitors. Now there are some more obvious things that people tend to think about. It could be pricing, it could be quality, and all of those are important. But when it comes to things like pricing, all of those are important. But when it comes to things like pricing, while it's good to be competitive with your pricing, obviously at the end of the day you need to be making money, so you do need to be able to set your prices at a level where you have good numbers, where your business is profitable, where your business is profitable, and one of the ironic things is that putting your prices up might counterintuitively make you more attractive Because, remember, people are very much driven by perceived value for money and often, if you show people two products, that look pretty much the same, but one is more expensive than the other. There's an automatic feeling that the more expensive product is somehow better, and in fact they could be identical. So remember that sales is not just a logical, factual decision People who are buying and put yourself in the buyer's shoes. I think that's really important. What do you do when you're buying? What goes through your mind If you see two things that look very similar, but there's a clear price difference? Speaking for myself at least and I know many people are the same I automatically assume that the more expensive one is somehow better. And then that makes me wonder what I haven't noticed, unless it's something I know really well, and I know that there is no difference. So it makes sense to go for the cheaper option. A lot of people will actually go for the higher priced option just because they feel it must somehow be better. So that's one aspect.

Speaker 1: 2:40

Price quality is another one. So you may or may not have control over the quality of what you're offering. If you're a reseller, then at least the quality of whatever it is you're reselling is determined by whoever makes it. So that's an area where you don't have much control, other than you can decide whether or not you continue to sell a particular item, based on the quality that people experience when they use it. However, there are generally aspects that you can control, and that would tend to be things like customer support. So one of the things to think about here is to look at what is within your control and what is outside of your control. So for the things that are outside of your control, what steps can you take to make sure that those things reach an acceptable standard and that that standard is maintained? So what you're delivering to your clients of the things that you can't control, you know that the quality will be there. So, for example, I also I'm very much into photography.

Speaker 1: 3:51

I sell wildlife photographs and I use a printer who's based in London. They also have a facility in Frankfurt and, first of all, I know that their print quality is really good because I've had them print some stuff for me and send it to me, and I live in France, so I'm not in either country, so it's not easy for me to get to see either printer in person. But what I've received from them has been consistently good. Their turnaround times are very good. When I've contacted them with a question or a special request. They've been very responsive and I've also had the situation where work has gone adrift.

Speaker 1: 4:34

So this happened with a couple of clients in Australia. The work was shipped, they ordered these prints, they paid for them, they were shipped by the printer from London and this was using standard postage. And after a couple of weeks these prints still hadn't arrived. So I'd spoken to my clients, I'd emailed them and they confirmed they hadn't arrived. So I'd spoken to my clients, I'd emailed them and they confirmed they hadn't received them. So I contacted the printer and they immediately said okay, not a problem, we'll reprint them and we'll send them via a mail courier so that it could all be tracked.

Speaker 1: 5:11

So that's an example of having a quality of product and a quality of service from your supplier. So in my case, in that example, I'm not there when they print the orders. I'm not there when they ship them. I don't know what they're doing, but I do know from my experience of interacting with them and from being a client myself and from talking to my own clients, that the standard that they deliver is very good. So that's one aspect of it the things that are outside of your control. So you do need to make sure that they do meet the standards that are required in order for you to maintain that difference in your market between yourself and the people you compete against. So what is the other side of the coin, though? What are the things that are within your control? So, again using that same example, well, I send out emails to people regularly. I respond to questions regularly. I'm very active on social media, so one example there is to always, always respond to comments that are made. Now, I'm trying to think of any bad ones can't think of any, but it doesn't matter what the comment is but always respond to them. When it comes from somebody who is a prospective buyer, always be very quick to get back to them, be proactive where you can.

Speaker 1: 6:41

Another example, and I give it in a webinar that is available for free, and you can jump on that from my website. It's very easy. It's an hour long webinar. It runs through three things, so, primarily, they kind of revolve around the sales conversation, how to overcome objections and how to close a deal. So those are, I think, for most people, really key issues, because they in my experience at least, they tend to be the areas where we let ourselves down as salespeople, and, after all, the reason that you're listening to this whether sales is long-term career for you or not the reason that you're listening to this whether sales is long-term career-fuel or not, the reason that you're listening is that perhaps things aren't going as well as you would like. So so what can you do to stand out? So the example I give is I was working as a reseller.

Speaker 1: 7:29

I was actually general manager of a small company and I was working with a major company within Australia and the products were coming from the UK and they needed a certain delivery, which, at the time the order was all good. We could definitely achieve that. And then, of course, things started to go wrong and I started getting messages from the manufacturer in the UK to say that look, they've had a problem, they're having to fix something and that's going to result in a delay and that will impact the delivery. Obviously, and unfortunately, those delays kept coming. So what I did as a matter of well, I was going to say as a matter of course, but also as a matter of principle, because that popped into my head and I think this is really important I just contacted the buyer, who was my point of liaison at that stage in the sale because they were talking to the project teams and I let them know immediately that we'd had a problem and that the new delivery date was whatever it was.

Speaker 1: 8:28

However, I had been warned that it might slip further and all I could do in that instance was to keep them informed, because I had no control over what was going on in the UK. I had no control over fixing the issue, prioritizing when this unit went out, any of the things that would impact delivery, prioritizing when this unit went out any of the things that would impact delivery. And we went through I think it was maybe three different delivery dates. I can't remember now, but every time I just jumped straight on I had somebody working for me, an admin lady. She would also jump in as well and let that buyer know as soon as possible what was going on. And, equally, I had contacts on the engineering team, so I was also talking to them and letting them know.

Speaker 1: 9:12

So this is the kind of situation that I know a lot of people absolutely dread. It's not something I look forward to, but the thing is that when things did go wrong, I just jumped on it and kept the client fully informed and then, when we were finally able to deliver. That was all good. I let them know it went smoothly. And then it was a few weeks later. I had an email. I think it was either an email or a telephone call, I can't remember now. But this buyer basically came back to me and said thank you to me. And said thank you, and she was saying that I was the only supplier, and this is a big company so they've got a lot of different suppliers for one thing and another. I was the only supplier who had come back without being chased to let them know that things were going wrong and to advise of an updated delivery. Every other supplier that they dealt with, that person had to chase them when the delivery date or the due shipment date or whatever it was when they would normally expect to receive a notification when that came and went and nothing had happened.

Speaker 1: 10:20

So the reason for mentioning this in this podcast because this is about differentiating yourself from your competitors is to think about what you can do. How can you be different, bearing in mind that your competitors are most likely doing what everybody else does, and if it's bad news, they don't want to be the bringer of bad news. Who does, but they just won't do it. They'll wait to be chased. So get in there and stand out what can make you easier to deal with by your clients, and don't underestimate how important that is, because if you're very easy to deal with, the chances are that your client is much more likely to want to buy from you because they know that you can be trusted. They know that if things go wrong, you'll let them know as soon as possible, assuming the basic standards are there, whether it's quality of product or to do with the quality of the product. Anyway, as long as you're meeting the basic standards, if you are easy to deal with, that is definitely going to weigh things in your favor, and it will not only work with current sales but it will also work with future sales Because obviously, particularly if it's a new client, they won't know how you react when things go bad.

Speaker 1: 11:40

Unfortunately, it's one of those things you have to experience and certainly in my career it's something I've worked hard at. In more senior roles I've had a lot more control over what my business can do. As a more junior salesperson I had less control over what was happening. That was always happening at higher levels than I operated at, but I would go and talk to senior people and find out what was going on. I even, in fact, one of those conversations even resulted in me leaving because I've been selling some gear. I knew it wasn't very good quality.

Speaker 1: 12:16

I was in a UK company at the time. It was made by an American part of the company. We knew within our organization that this was a much lower standard, that it was built to lower standards. The specs weren't brilliant, it was cheap, but it really was cheap. The specs weren't brilliant, it was cheap, but it it really was cheap.

Speaker 1: 12:36

And um, I then found out that a client of mine who'd uh bought one from me had previously uh, in fact he hadn't even bought it from me, he'd bought it from, um, my predecessor, and he'd had endless problems with it. Uh, it was test equipment, so he was having to rent a test lab to do certain testing and every time he did that, obviously that cost him a lot of money, but this bit of kit would fail and he'd have to then rent another unit from somewhere else and basically he wanted his money back. And I spoke to a director of this company and it was a fairly big company and his attitude was well, this guy is just a small business, so who cares? And that really got my back up. So I made it my mission in life to get this man his money back, which I did, and then I promptly left, and I think that's the other side of the coin.

Speaker 1: 13:23

When you're dealing with that kind of arrogance, some clients feel they have to just put up with it because you might be the only business selling a particular product or service. But in reality that's an unusual situation. Normally there is somebody else there, there's somewhere else where they can go, and so I've always taken that view that my duty is to support my client. If you've listened to other podcasts, if you're taking my course, if you've done my course, the most important change in approach that you can have as a salesperson I talk about this on the webinar is to regard your role as you are there to help your client to be successful. That's what it is. It's not about making this sale. It's not about hitting your numbers this week, this month, this year, whatever it might be, because if you focus on serving your clients, you're going to hit those numbers, because most salespeople don't do that.

Speaker 1: 14:24

So again we're back to how do you differentiate yourself Really be there to help your client be successful. Ask the questions you need to know so that you know whether or not you can provide a good solution for them. If you can, that's great and make sure they understand why. But if you can't provide a solution for them, here again and this actually going back to that same company they, they were totally not interested in looking after their clients. All they were interested in was making the sale, and even my sales manager was basically telling me to lie if that's what it took to get the deal. So the ethics they just weren't there.

Speaker 1: 15:05

And to me, business ethics are really important and the reason that they're important one of the reasons that they're important is that they will follow you around. Most of us tend to be in one industry throughout our careers and we may move around in that industry. We might work for different businesses or have our own business at some point, but that reputation is going to follow you around and if you've been guilty of doing things that are unethical, clients are going to talk about it and think about it. If you were in their shoes, if you were dealing with a salesperson and they'd lied to you to get the order and when you'd got something delivered, it clearly didn't do what you needed it to do. You'd been very upfront, very specific with the salesperson about what you needed and, for whatever reason, what they delivered clearly not only doesn't meet your need, but never would have met your needs. So what would you do in that situation? Well, you're going to give them bad reviews. If it's something where you might get feedback on something like TripAdvisor, you're going to tell people you know you're not. Most people I know will not remain quiet when they feel they've been had, which is essentially what that amounts to.

Speaker 1: 16:20

So, again coming back to how do you differentiate from your competitors? I think these are really important things to think about. So I guess, just to quickly summarize what I've spoken about so far and clearly there are more of them, but these are just things to really get you starting to think about. What can you do to differentiate? One is look at your pricing. So a bad place to go is to compete on price, because it always spirals down and this is a great way of going out of business. So it's not about price. So keep your price at a level that you need to in order to remain in business, and I mean, by all means stay competitive, but make sure that you're offering good value for money as well. So price is one aspect of that Client support.

Speaker 1: 17:03

So think about the things that I'll talk about what's under your control first. So supporting your client, how you sell to them, ethics, all those kinds of things, how you support your client in the pre-delivery stage, in the delivery stage, if you're delivering something, but make sure you're consistent throughout, keep your standards high and be consistent throughout. Where you're looking at things that are outside of your control, just make sure that whoever you're dealing with your supplier, is also operating in a way that is consistent and congruent with the way that you operate your business or the way that you operate your sales personally. So make sure that they can be trusted, that they offer good quality product, that their support is very good, that they are very fast, very timely in coming back to you, they give you accurate information, they're not lying to you essentially, and then you can pass that on and make sure that your client also gets really top level support. And I think for a lot of businesses, yeah, the product's important, but the support is just as important. It's really important to know that when you buy something from someone that you're going to be able to get support when you need it when something goes wrong and and you know that's just life from time to time things go wrong. So they're just a couple of ideas, really two or three ideas that you can think about when it comes to how you differentiate from your clients.

Speaker 1: 18:36

But do start to think about what are the key aspects of your business and how do your competitors operate and what do your clients need? What's their ideal when it comes to dealing with a supplier? And this is the kind of exercise that it's worth sitting down, maybe with a cup of coffee or something, maybe 10, 20 minutes, just brainstorm it. Or, if you have colleagues and you're able to do that, just sit down and just brainstorm a little bit. Talk about experiences, talk about your clients, maybe even chat to clients.

Speaker 1: 19:10

If you've got good clients or clients that you have a very good relationship with, you can sit down and have a chat to them about what are they looking for when they select a supplier. What does their ideal supplier look like in terms of the things that are important to their business? Pick their brains, and really going to clients is probably the most beneficial thing you can do, because you're getting it from the horse's mouth, as it were. Okay, so that's it for this podcast. Hopefully it's given you some thoughts about how you can be more competitive. There's a lot more information in the course, so if you haven't had a look at my training course, consultative Selling, please take a look at it, because I cover this and many, many other aspects of selling. So that's it for now. I'll speak to you in the next podcast.