Speaker 1: Once you understand those key elements from your buyer, everything
Speaker 1: needs to be related to what's important to your buyer.
Speaker 1: If it's not important to your buyer, why are you
Speaker 1: talking about it.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Audible Ready Podcast, the show that
Speaker 2: helps you and your teams sell more faster. We'll feature
Speaker 2: sales leaders sharing their best insights on how to create
Speaker 2: a sales engine that helps you fuel repeatable revenue growth.
Speaker 2: Presented by the team at Force Management, a leader in
Speaker 2: B to B sales effectiveness. Let's get started.
Speaker 3: Hello, I'm Rachel Klett Miller with an audible Ready sales podcast.
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening. Today. We are going to spend
Speaker 3: our time in this episode talking about differentiation. John Kaplan
Speaker 3: joins me today. Hi John, Hey Rachel, how are we
Speaker 3: different and better? We all want to be selling a
Speaker 3: highly differentiated solution, but sometimes that differentiation isn't so obvious
Speaker 3: to us as salespeople. We need to work to determine
Speaker 3: how we can position our features and functions in a
Speaker 3: way that has value for the customer. So John, let's
Speaker 3: just start with short discussion on where reps most often
Speaker 3: go wrong with differentiation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think that the some of the
Speaker 1: biggest challenges are is that, you know, reps don't articulate
Speaker 1: it in a way that has, you know, meaning to
Speaker 1: the buyer. They get a little cocky about it and
Speaker 1: feel like they can win the deal alone on differentiation,
Speaker 1: and many sellers don't know how to set it up
Speaker 1: in a conversation. You know, It's like it's like giving
Speaker 1: away a punchline too early. And lastly, most companies don't
Speaker 1: do a good enough job arming their sellers with the
Speaker 1: knowledge and skills about the company differentiation and how to
Speaker 1: position it properly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's understanding that differentiation, but how what it means
Speaker 3: to the buyer, which is a difficult part. So let's
Speaker 3: talk about what you do right. First. You have to
Speaker 3: have a solid understanding every differentiation, and what we mean
Speaker 3: by that is you have to know what makes your
Speaker 3: solution different and or better than competitive alternatives.
Speaker 1: Yeah. At Force Management we break differentiation into three major categories.
Speaker 1: Unique differentiation and this is the differentiation that it has
Speaker 1: value to the customer and only you can do it.
Speaker 1: So therefore, you want to get this differentiation influenced into
Speaker 1: the required capabilities and you'll win every time. So if
Speaker 1: you have unique differentiation and the customer sets it's required,
Speaker 1: you know, and you get it into the required capabilities,
Speaker 1: you'll win it every time. And you know, the way
Speaker 1: the world works today, though it is today's unique, differentiation
Speaker 1: becomes comparative in the future, so if it's any good,
Speaker 1: it's going to get copied. So that's why we also
Speaker 1: talk about another one called comparative differentiation, and again it
Speaker 1: has value to the customer and others say they can
Speaker 1: do it, but how you do it is better for
Speaker 1: the customer, and these are where we really compete most
Speaker 1: of the time. And then the last one just for information.
Speaker 1: We're going to focus on unique and comparative today, but
Speaker 1: holistic differentiation is powerful as well, and you know, it
Speaker 1: has value to the customer. It tends to be more
Speaker 1: about the company, like company performance, financial stability, background of
Speaker 1: ownership and stuff like that. And in a customer's mind,
Speaker 1: these tend to lower the risk of doing business with
Speaker 1: your company, so they're important. The problem is that reps
Speaker 1: tend to use these too early in the sales cycle
Speaker 1: and they don't get credit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they mitigate we always say they mitigate risk, but
Speaker 3: the deals are one and loss. On that comparative differentiation
Speaker 3: most often. So for this conversation, John, let's focus on
Speaker 3: that unique and comparative group. Once you understand, then you
Speaker 3: can go to the customer execute the right type of discovery.
Speaker 3: And it starts with that first basic sales skills uncovering
Speaker 3: customer need.
Speaker 1: Yes, like everything we talk about on this podcast, Rachel,
Speaker 1: it's always starts with an outside in with a customer problem.
Speaker 1: You need to uncover the outcomes that they're trying to
Speaker 1: drive and what's required to drive that outcome. It always
Speaker 1: starts with great discovery. You can't use differentiation to your
Speaker 1: advantage if you don't understand how to position it to
Speaker 1: solve a customer problem.
Speaker 3: We have a concept that we use called trap setting questions.
Speaker 3: These are important in discovery.
Speaker 1: Talk about why, Yeah, trap setting questions are really really
Speaker 1: critical and a couple things. We want to make sure
Speaker 1: that when we start this conversation, a trap setting question
Speaker 1: is nothing more than a discovery question with the intent
Speaker 1: to trap the competition. You are not trapping the customer. Repeat,
Speaker 1: you are not trapping the customer, So it's a discovery question,
Speaker 1: but the intent to trap the competitor around your differentiator.
Speaker 1: So every morning you need to wake up, know your differentiators,
Speaker 1: and prepare great discovery questions that will set up your differentiation.
Speaker 1: So you've got to remember in discovery, I can't just
Speaker 1: tell someone they have a problem. If I tell them
Speaker 1: they have a problem, they're going to resist me. So
Speaker 1: I have to get them to tell themselves that they
Speaker 1: have a problem. And let me give you quick example.
Speaker 1: So I worked for a software company back in the
Speaker 1: day that had very powered, powerful differentiation. It was called
Speaker 1: bi directional associativity, and what it meant was that a
Speaker 1: change made anywhere in the design through manufacturing process was
Speaker 1: immediately reflected everywhere. So it was like global find and replace,
Speaker 1: you know, for manufacturing and changes and timing of changes
Speaker 1: which significantly impacted money. So I knew that I had
Speaker 1: to get the customer thinking about the pain of making
Speaker 1: changes in the process, and especially late changes. So I'd
Speaker 1: wake up and prepare questions like walk me through the
Speaker 1: last engineering change that created a challenge for you, and
Speaker 1: what impact did that change have on the timing of
Speaker 1: the project? And what impact did that change have on
Speaker 1: the cost of a project? So you know, I kept
Speaker 1: going deeper and deeper. Who ultimately pays for that? You
Speaker 1: were the customer. So I was trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: uncover profitability issues, and so now I have them standing
Speaker 1: in a moment of pain when a change that's made
Speaker 1: in let's say, in an engineering drawing is not reflected
Speaker 1: in manufacturing. And then Rachel, the last thing, which I
Speaker 1: call the crux move, is I have to cement the
Speaker 1: fix for this problem, which is my differentiation in the
Speaker 1: customer's require capabilities. And so i'd follow up with the
Speaker 1: crux move is so, mister and missus customer, it sounds
Speaker 1: like you're going to need to make sure that a
Speaker 1: change made anywhere in the process is reflected everywhere automatically.
Speaker 1: And they would say, yes, absolutely, that would be great.
Speaker 1: And later on, when I was done with my discovery,
Speaker 1: I would pivot to how we did that and tell
Speaker 1: them about our functionality called bi directional associativity. So the
Speaker 1: crux move, you know, took that software company that I
Speaker 1: was talking about from zero to a billion dollars in
Speaker 1: less than ten years and stock splitting five times in
Speaker 1: seven years and forty three straight quarters of never missing
Speaker 1: our number to Wall Street. It was an incredibly important,
Speaker 1: not only incredibly portant differentiator for us, but the fact
Speaker 1: that they taught us how to position it effectively was
Speaker 1: just astronomical in our success.
Speaker 3: I think you bring the way you told that story, John,
Speaker 3: there was one thing I wanted to call out. Once
Speaker 3: you heard the customer mention your differentiation as part of
Speaker 3: the requirements for success, the buy dep directions utivity, you
Speaker 3: didn't just jump into the fact that you had it,
Speaker 3: you said later on, when I was done with my discovery,
Speaker 3: then I would pivot to show how we did that
Speaker 3: and how we did that differently than others.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you caught that. I'm really glad you caught
Speaker 1: that because I have this vision in my head of
Speaker 1: you know, braveheart and mel Gibson yelling hold hold. Because
Speaker 1: what we have a tendency to do is the minute
Speaker 1: we hear anything in a conversation that just smells or
Speaker 1: sniffs like our differentiation, we jump all over it and
Speaker 1: start talking about, you know, how we can do that.
Speaker 1: And you have to get the customer in a position
Speaker 1: that is so critical and so urgent that they know
Speaker 1: they have a problem, they've created their own urgency around
Speaker 1: solving it. So it's totally related to what we always
Speaker 1: talk about in differentiation. And I want to just simplify
Speaker 1: it a little bit, because trap setting questions are nothing
Speaker 1: more than great discovery questions with the intent to trap
Speaker 1: the competitor around the differentiation. So don't over complicate it.
Speaker 3: Right, you're trapping the competitor, and then you're also getting
Speaker 3: the customer to reveal requirements for success that align to
Speaker 3: what you can do. And to say it a different way, John,
Speaker 3: what we were talking about is you have to understand
Speaker 3: the problem fully, right, So when you're holding like Mel
Speaker 3: Gibson in Brave Heart, I mean, it's exciting when you
Speaker 3: hear a requirement that you know you can do better
Speaker 3: than the competition, but you really have to understand that problem,
Speaker 3: what's required to fix it, and importantly, the outcomes that
Speaker 3: the customer is trying to drive all of that information,
Speaker 3: all of those components really allow you to correctly map
Speaker 3: your differentiation to do it in the right way. So
Speaker 3: let's talk about that, John, I want to spend a
Speaker 3: little bit of time on that. We just don't want
Speaker 3: to rattle off our features that we know are differentiated, like,
Speaker 3: oh that's important to you, Oh we can do that.
Speaker 3: Here's right. You need to hold on that a little
Speaker 3: bit too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really really good. So once you understand those key
Speaker 1: elements from your buyer, everything needs to be related to
Speaker 1: what's important to your buyer. If it's not important to
Speaker 1: your buyer, why are you talking about it. So you
Speaker 1: have to position that differentiation as it relates to the
Speaker 1: requirements for success and the outcomes they're trying to drive.
Speaker 1: If it's not related to the buyer, don't focus on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you've told a great story so far on
Speaker 3: this podcast. We love the stories. I would love to
Speaker 3: hear a story where you worked a comparative differentiator this
Speaker 3: comparative angle really well, or maybe just where you sucked
Speaker 3: at it. But we can focus on something you did
Speaker 3: well well.
Speaker 1: No, I got one. This one. This one was a
Speaker 1: cliffhanger for me, but it's one of my favorites on
Speaker 1: this topic. So it's when I was selling software and
Speaker 1: I was closing. I was in a closing meeting with
Speaker 1: the CEO of the company, and we've done an incredible
Speaker 1: job with discovery. We found out which critical project was
Speaker 1: in trouble and demonstrated how our software could solve those
Speaker 1: project issues. You know, way better than anyone else. And
Speaker 1: I'm smiling like a cheshire cat. When all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the CEO says to me, mister Kaplan, we have a problem.
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking to myself, okay, I'm always prepared for objections,
Speaker 1: but this one almost got me. This one almost got me.
Speaker 1: And I said, you know, what's the problem? And he
Speaker 1: told me the color of your screen is blue and
Speaker 1: not green, and which was a true statement, but it
Speaker 1: was so simple it was I couldn't tell if he
Speaker 1: was kidding. So I thought he was kidding me. And
Speaker 1: so luckily I was trained extremely well, you know, by
Speaker 1: my company and about you know, the importance of differentiation
Speaker 1: and how to properly position it. So after settling myself
Speaker 1: and holding my composure, I asked a discovery question. So
Speaker 1: when in doubt, ask a question. So I said, yes,
Speaker 1: mister CEO, the color of our user interface is blue,
Speaker 1: but can you tell me what problem that creates for you?
Speaker 1: And he answered, you know, my engineers are telling me
Speaker 1: that they've been looking at a you know, a green
Speaker 1: screen for over ten years and it's distracting for their work.
Speaker 1: And I instantly knew that this was the last ditch
Speaker 1: effort by my competitor, who was about to lose the account.
Speaker 1: They had a green screen, and after all the validation
Speaker 1: events that we did proving our technology, all that they
Speaker 1: come up with was the color of the screen. So
Speaker 1: I immediately went to the final required capabilities. And I
Speaker 1: want you to just listen to this point, audience, please,
Speaker 1: this is so important learning moment for me and my
Speaker 1: life as a seller. So I immediately went to the
Speaker 1: required capabilities that have been agreed upon it by the customer.
Speaker 1: There was no screen color listed, so no problem, I said,
Speaker 1: no problem, ceo, here's a list of your required capabilities.
Speaker 1: At the top of the list was what we were
Speaker 1: talking about earlier, is bi directional associativity. So I'll add
Speaker 1: green screen to the list. And then I asked, can
Speaker 1: you stack rank these for me? And so I went
Speaker 1: through and asked if green screen was more important than next,
Speaker 1: if it was more important than why, And on each one,
Speaker 1: you know, of the previously agreed upon requirements, it wasn't
Speaker 1: more important than any of them. So in the end,
Speaker 1: green screen wound up last. And it was one of
Speaker 1: my favorite interactions with a business owner when the CEO
Speaker 1: said to me, John, that was well done. I wish
Speaker 1: my sellers could do that. I'll take care of the
Speaker 1: green screen issue. We're all good and so I really
Speaker 1: really have contemplated that over the years, is that if
Speaker 1: I've done a good job positioning my differentiation, it should
Speaker 1: show up in the required capabilities. If somebody brings up,
Speaker 1: you know, another required capability, don't be afraid to go
Speaker 1: back to or they bring up some difference between you
Speaker 1: and the competitor in this case, don't be afraid to
Speaker 1: go back to the required capabilities and just have a
Speaker 1: discussion about those. And in the end, you know, even
Speaker 1: if it's a required cap even if it is a
Speaker 1: some type of differentiation. In this case, I guess you
Speaker 1: could call it comparative. However, we started this podcast by
Speaker 1: saying it has to add value to the customer. Green
Speaker 1: screen in the end did not add value to the
Speaker 1: customer that was overwhelming enough to change the require capabilities.
Speaker 1: So it was such a huge learning moment for me.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's great, and we've all had to deal with
Speaker 3: our own green screen.
Speaker 1: It's right, it's right green screen moments. I love that hashball.
Speaker 3: We have a great podcast also with Marty Mercer on
Speaker 3: stack breaking the required capabilities in your favor. I'll go
Speaker 3: ahead and link that in the show notes for everyone else,
Speaker 3: Thank you for the conversation, John my pleasure. All right,
Speaker 3: thank you to all of you for listening.
Speaker 4: At force Management, we're focused on transforming sales organizations into
Speaker 4: elite teams. Our proven methodologies deliver programs that build company
Speaker 4: alignment and fuel repeatable revenue growth. Give your teams the
Speaker 4: ability to execute the growth strategy at the point of sale.
Speaker 4: Our strength is our experience. The proof is in our results.
Speaker 4: Let's get started. Visit us at forcemanagement dot com.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to the Audible Ready podcast. To not
Speaker 2: miss an episode, subscribe to the show in your favorite
Speaker 2: podcast player. Until next time.