Do your customers think their business is too unique to draw lessons from others? Here’s how to counter that mindset so they can benefit from the successful practices of others.
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A constant comment that I hear when I’m working with a new team or a new company is, But Colleen, we’re different.
And I smile and I nod and I ask questions, and then I come to realize that they’re not different.
That their customers are facing the same challenges as my other clients, customers are around the globe or in a completely different industry.
And yes, there are some nuances.
Everyone’s got a different sales motion, and we all have different customers and we solve different problems.
But at its core, we are solving problems that have tangible benefits to our customers.
And here’s why I think the…But Colleen I’m different…is so problematic.
It’s less about your sales motion, sales skills, and sales process.
It’s more about the mindset that you are saying to yourself that I cannot learn from others.
I cannot learn from other industries.
I need to do only what people in my industry are doing, which makes you into a commodity.
It says, in that mindset I can’t learn from one customer to another customer, or I can’t learn from my channel partners to my direct partners, or inside sales to outside sales, because I’m rooted in this mindset that says I am different.
And I think instead in sales, actually, I don’t think I know, I know in sales, if you instead look for the similarities and say, hey, that’s a best performing company in a different industry, and I want to be the best performing company in my industry, what can I learn from them? What is this channel sales person or indirect sales person doing really well to manage their channel that I could apply to a direct sale? What is this consumer, this B2C company doing that I could apply to this B2B company? What’s this customer doing that I could apply to another customer? What happened in that sales cycle over here in one industry and one part of the country and how can I apply it to another?
If you focus on the similarities instead of the differences, you will rise above the noise that’s in your market, and you’ll stand out because you’ll be the first one in your market with that customer in that industry doing it that way.
And that’s how you create an apples to oranges comparison, accelerate your value and make sure you’re not being commoditized.
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