The most probable phrase that is likely to come out from a customer’s lips – apart of course from, “You are expensive!” – is “You are all the same!”.  History has shown that commoditisation is almost certain for every organisation at a given point in time, for several reasons such as new technologies or oversupply.  Apart from these cases though, there are numerous companies that their field of business is actually selling commodities, such as agricultural products like wheat, fruits and cattle, or energy products, namely oil and gas.    

When the perception of the client is that there is merely no difference to what we and our competitors are offering, then price naturally becomes the only differentiator.  In this case, buyers play one seller against the other, a strategy that most of the times leads to price reductions that squeeze or even eradicate the margins of their suppliers. 

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the companies in these industries either choose to compete on price or try to find services that they can offer with their basic product, which in most of the cases can easily be copied or they are already in offer from the competition as well.  As it can be easily understood, the challenges that the salesforces of these organisations are faced against are enormous. 

But unfortunately, during the Sales conversations with their prospective customers, Sales professionals tend to stick to the same pattern, which is talking about their company and its’ history, their visionary CEO, their portfolio of customers, and the numerous “innovative” characteristics, plus all these advantages that come with their products, in a desperate effort to differentiate from the competition.  No wonder why customers eventually think that “They are all the same!”, as the approach is nearly the same from everybody.

Theodore Levitt (1925-2006), American professor at Harvard Business School and economist once famously said that “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want to buy a quarter-inch hole”.  The issue is that as salespeople we tend to think that the hole is there, only to create the need for the drill that we are selling or that people are shaving just to buy the razors that we are offering.  On the other hand, our customers are thinking in exactly the opposite way, and based on that idea we need to structure our Sales conversations, even if we are selling commodities.

All that our clients care about is how they will improve their results, so our approach should be, first, to listen to what they have to say and then cooperate with them towards this direction.  The salesperson who works in this way with the customer will have far greater chances to win the business, compared to their counterparts who believe that their product is the value creator for the client. 

As Sales professionals, we need to constantly remind ourselves that value is created for the customer, only when the Sales conversation is meaningful for them.  Then, most probably, they are going to think that after all, “Not all drill sellers are the same!”.