As sellers, we always talk about the importance of our “Unique Value Proposition.” For decades, we have thought about our value proposition in the context of our products/solutions. And we focused on our differentiation to determine our uniqueness.
We would go through endless detail about the unique and differentiated capabilities of our products and solutions. We train our people, endlessly, about all the capabilities of our products and their superiority over the competition. “We have these features and functions, no other alternative has those….” Each of us would be presenting our unique list, thinking those would have an impact on our customers.
Some of the more advanced sellers look at the value created/realized by these solutions. “We improve productivity by X…. We reduce costs by Y…… The ROI on our solutions is Z….”
And, of course, we all know the ultimate UVP, “Our price/terms are better than all the alternatives….., particularly if you buy by the end of the month…..” (I’m trying to think of some sort of Halloween “Trick or Treat” analogy.)
The reality is, if we focus on the solutions and the value realized, we are unlikely to be “unique,” at least in things that matter to the customer. Any of the alternatives customers consider will help them address their problem. They are unlikely to be highly differentiated in terms the value realized. And in areas where we may have temporary uniqueness, competitors are quick to copy or “one-up” us.
If the value of our offerings is virtually undifferentiated, how do we create a unique value?
It turns out, the only area where we can produce highly differentiated uniqueness is in how we engage the customer in their change and buying processes. It’s the experience we create in helping them think about the problem they are trying to address. Perhaps the perspectives we share, perhaps the ideas/insights we bring, or how we help them manage themselves through their problem solving process. It’s how we make customers feel about what they are doing.
We read research report after research report about how buyers struggle. For years we’ve talked about sensemaking, decision confidence, FOMU/FOFU. We see data reporting how they fail to make a decision the majority of the time, and when they do, they often experience regret.
In the face of this tremendous opportunity to help the customer, we fail. We focus on our products and why they are better than the alternatives. We aren’t helping our customers where they most need help, as a result we aren’t creating differentiated experiences for them. We aren’t helping them succeed.
If we want to create unique value, we do that WITH our customers, not for our customers. We help them with the most difficult part of their buying process, we help them navigate it successfully, we help them navigate it with confidence, we support them in making them feel good about what they have done.
It’s that simple!
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