During the Christmas holidays I read “Lost in a sea of sameness”, a very interesting white paper from Danheiser, Kelly and Johnston regarding the lack of differentiation in the telecommunications industry.

Through extensive research of the websites and twitter feeds of thirty top global players from this sector, they concluded that they were all telling their potential customers that they are no different from their competitors.  Among the top ten most frequently words that they all used were generic terms such as “services”, “solutions”, “businesses” and generic technology terms like “network”, “security” and “cloud”, leaving their clients to swim in a “sea of sameness”, as none of these terms related to the actual needs of them.  What’s more, they were all mainly talking about themselves and their great infrastructure, their premium customer service and their tailored solutions developed by an army of experts.

Of course, this is not only found in telecoms, but nearly in every sector of today’s business environment.  Therefore, it comes as no surprise that 54% of B2B deals end up in “no deal”, because the customer can’t find any value and can’t differentiate between potential suppliers.    

From the above, it becomes quite clear that the companies that manage to get across their value proposition to the client will eventually be the most successful.  But to do that, we must understand what the customers value and then, if we have a solution that matches their needs, present it in a quantified way so that it will make sense to them.

The main source of gathering all the information that will lead us to the much-wanted offer differentiation, are the sales conversations with these clients.  So, the role of the modern sales professionals is vital, as they are the interconnection of the customer’s world and the supplier’s organization.  

Hence, as salespeople we must convey the message from these meetings to our companies, but this will have no value, if the organization that we work for is not ready to listen, learn and adjust from what the market is telling them.  If the suppliers do so, then it is highly probable that they will be able to add value in each step of the customer’s journey.

In conclusion, we must always put ourselves in the shoes of the buyer.  If we do that then it would be much easier for us to answer the ultimate sales question: “Why should we buy from you?”