60 Second Articles

Chris Lambrecht's 60 Second Impact
60 Seconds of Information Impacting You and Our Fast-Forward Economy

March 2009 Flash - Estimated Reading Time: 60 Seconds

60 Second Articles:

Here's an article that crossed my desk today that is important to anyone selling business services or products. . . . C. Lambrecht

By Tim Riesterer, CEO CMM Group, with minor edits by C. Lambrecht
Content Director, AMA’s Marketing & Sales Alignment Forum

De-Commoditizing Your Customer Conversations Requires Focus on the Right Part of the Buying Cycle

Commoditization is a cruel reality that many companies in most categories increasingly face. We have to go so far down in the weeds to find an even slightly distinguishing feature of our product or service that when we try to highlight it as a point of differentiation, we find our executive buyers could care less about the subtlety.

So, how can we de-commoditize our customer conversations? First, forget about your products and services. Our whole problem starts when we lead with our products instead of the customer, and what they want to accomplish. Look at the graphic below. If we jump in with products, we’re immediately placed on the right hand side of the customer buying cycle, which is precisely the moment the battle royal to avoid parity takes place. Very little opportunity is left to de-commoditize the conversation

The real opportunity to de-commoditize your company takes place on the left hand side of the customer buying cycle. Possibly with a customer that is “untroubled” or “unaware” that they are even doing something that is sub-optimizing their objectives. Every company needs to identify those select business objectives and challenges their customers face that are keeping them from maximizing their performance. Next, you have to map your company’s best answer to those scenarios in a way that demonstrates a solution to the challenge and a business value for the solution.

And then, you must craft the customer messaging required to drive a de-commoditized conversation that takes place in either a self-serve web-driven marketing campaign or a person-to-person field sales interaction.

Here’s the key thing to remember. At this point in the customer conversation, it is not about whether your widget or your workflow has better features than the competitor. It’s about what company can help a customer more clearly see a path between their sub-optimized objectives and their offering.

Write this down: de-commoditization is about “how you sell” not “what you sell.” Because companies are forever catching up, copying, surpassing, their competitors only to be eclipsed a short time later in the battle for a differentiating feature. And, all this is happening at such a dizzying rate that the majority of customers throw up their hands in confusion and frustration. As a result, they assume all of the top competitors are essentially equal, and suddenly, you are commoditized.

So, the questions you need to ask yourself today are:

• How well does my messaging support and enable a customer conversation on the left hand side of this customer buying cycle?
• How well do my marketing programs and campaigns engage customers in this type of customer-centric, consultative interaction vs. a product-centric push?
• How well do my sales tools and training equip our field and channel partners to execute and deliver this kind of customer buying cycle experience?

Use these three issues as the starting point for your marketing and sales alignment initiative. This will give you a focus that helps de-commoditize your company in your marketplace and helps move the needle on revenue and profitability.

Need help? Email us today.[chrisl@intellmkt.com]

Best Wishes,
Chris Lambrecht

***

Best Wishes,
Chris Lambrecht
Intelligent Marketing Solutions

Member

IMC, Georgia Chapter
http://www.imcgeorgia.org