The Case For Knowing How You Make A Difference

By Jill Konrath, Contributing Editor

"All clients care about today is price. It doesn't matter if your service is better, lasts longer or enables them to do more things. If you don't have the lowest price, you lose."

Sound familiar? I can't tell you how many times I've heard discouraged sellers say various iterations of that quote in the past couple years.

No one likes to feel that they might as well be selling wastebaskets or rubber bands. You hate to think your clients could care less about the quality of your services. That leaves you feeling empty, like you're wasting your time and your life away.

If you're like most people, you want to feel good about the services you sell. You want to be proud of your services' capabilities. It's important to believe your service is top-notch or a great value for its price point.

Virtually every sales book on the market talks about the importance of being able to relate the features, advantages and benefits of your offering. But, in today's market it's just not enough.

To be successful selling these days, it's imperative for you to go deeper - to understand the difference your service makes to your clients. And you must understand it from their perspective, not yours.

Finding the Difference

Use these strategies to better understand the difference your product or service makes to your clients.

1. Situational Analysis: Use your critical thinking skills to analyze your client's world. Ask yourself or brainstorm with colleagues:
   
   
   • To the best of your knowledge, how are clients doing things without your service? (Identify the top 2-3 ways
     
     
   • What problems are they likely to be experiencing because of what they're doing/using today? How might their current methods make it difficult for them to achieve their goals and objectives?
     
     
   • How do these problems affect their business? This part is critical. "Feel-good" terms like lowered morale or upset workers isn't enough. Think in terms of critical business measures such as productivity, operational efficiency, profitability, costs and time-to-market. How does your offering affect these issues?
     
     
2. Ask Your Client(s): This is one of the most important things you can do - and it's much more effective if you do it after you've completed the situation analysis. Ask your clients:

• About how they did things before they used your service.
  
  
• To share the problems your offering helped them fix and the goals it helped them achieve.
  
  
• About the value they realized from working with you.
  

This is an invaluable exercise. Have your questions prepared and take good notes. If you don't understand your client's response, ask for clarification. You're at this meeting to learn as much as you can.

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