Competitive Sales Strategies & “Set-Aparts”

Competition plays a peculiar role in a Free Enterprise economic system, especially in the U.S. Since Sales is my business-life, dealing with competition has always been a consideration and frankly, my gut reaction to it is that its a nuisance. Intellectually, however, I recognize that competition has been an essential element behind the successes of U.S. business in the global marketplace. This element is commonly known as “Yankee Ingenuity”. With this in mind, I strive to not give in to my gut-level instincts to address competition as a nuisance and attack them negatively. I’ve heard it said that, in dealing with competition, “If you throw dirt, you’ll lose ground.” Sort of cute, huh? I’m surprised that hasn’t become a more common cliche. Anyway, for me, these have been helpful words of wisdom.


With that said, the question remains, “How does one, effectively, deal with competition in a positive manner?” My default position here has been to look for “set-aparts”.

Before going on, since the term “set-apart” can be used in a number of ways, let me tell you what I have in mind. To me, “set-apart” is more of a Marketing term. Its the sort of thing that you’ll typically find in Marketing materials, as positioning statements, for branding purposes. One of the best definitions I’ve found for this is in an article by Elizabeth Boineau, entitled “Is Your Brand Sending Mixed Messages?”, where she says:

“Your brand platform, or positioning statement, is born of articulating the “set-aparts,” whereby you offer a compelling proposition explaining why your brand should be the choice. The next step is to promise you’ll maintain both brand image and reputation by delivering against all the things you claim make you uniquely qualified to serve the needs of your audience.”

One of the best examples of this, in my experience, comes from my time with Minolta. At that time, I was able to say:

“Do you know that Minolta is so particular about imaging quality that we are one of only two companies in the world who make their own glass, from which we make our own lenses?”

Now, that’s a “set-apart”! More importantly, it was one that I could have a “fire in my belly” about and communicate with sincerity. As a Consultative Sales Professional, that has always been vital to me … to know that what I’m saying about what I’m offering is truly of value to my Customer.

With that in mind, I want to close by noting what I think is the most important “set-apart” for a Sales Professional to offer their Customers. That is the one that you see when you look in the mirror. Of course, that is, uniquely, you. No one else can offer that. However, it is also, uniquely, your responsibility to make sure that this is “truly of value” to your Customer.

How does this match up with your experience, in dealing with competition and in using “set-aparts”? As always, we welcome your sharing your views too!

Win-Win Selling … Another Perspective

“Win-Win Selling Is For Losers”. That’s the title of a current post by one of my favorite Sales bloggers, Scott R. Sheaffer. I have a high regard for this fellow Sales Professional’s views. In fact, Scott’s blog, Sales Vitamins, is on my Blogroll. With that set up, you may be expecting me to now say something like, “However, in this case, I think Scott’s all wet.” But I don’t. Actually, I’m in agreement with the views he expressed on this and if you haven’t read this article, I recommend that you do. Still, I think there’s another important perspective to consider.

At the risk of oversimplifying Scott’s message, I’ll say that the essence of my agreement is that it isn’t helpful and can be harmful for a Sales person to use the “We just want to make this a win-win situation” cliche. Scott is completely right that this is a trite expression that takes the focus off of the WIIFM and ignores that the “Me” component of the WIIFM is the Customer. With that said, though the cliched “win-win” expression may be unwise, I believe that the determination to achieve “win-win”, even if unspoken, is quite important. Here’s why:

The smart Customer recognizes that, in most cases, ”win-win” is in their best interest – i.e., it is part of their WIIFM. Regardless of the product or service the Customer needs they do “need” it. In other words, the Vendor is meeting a need that the Customer can’t satisfy on their own. The Vendor/Customer relationship isn’t a one-way street. It is, in fact, a mutually beneficial business partnership. With this in mind, the Customer understands the legitimacy of the “win-win” called “profit motive”. In most cases, their company will have a “profit motive” in mind for their products and services. Beyond this, the Customer understands that its the “profit motive” that makes it possible for their Vendor to keep fulfilling their needs and to get better at doing it. So, even if its only implicit, a Vendor that is determined to achieve “win-win” may be offering just the set-apart that the Customer knows they must have.

It may seem more obvious, on the Vendor’s side, why the “win-win” called “profit motive” is important. Nevertheless, my experience has been that finding this lacking in Sales Cultures is nearly as common as the use of hackneyed Sales cliches. Perhaps, in some cases, the effort to avoid the latter may end up causing the former. I’ve found that this can be avoided fairly simply. I start with pointing out that, though it isn’t always appropriate to bring it up in a Sales presentation, its completely appropriate to want your company to remain healthy. Then, it can be used to help the Sales person mature … when a Sales person is sort of “comfortable in their own skin” – i.e, at peace with the legitimacy of their function within a business process, they tend to become more and more self-assured. And, finally, they learn that there are circumstances where it is appropriate to bring this into the conversation with a Customer. A good example might be in a price versus value selling situation, where the Customer needs to understand that the value provided by “win-win” can be their sacrifice for a competitor’s lower price.

So what do you think? Do you agree that both my perspective on “win-win” and Scott’s are important? Is one more important than the other? Let us know your views so others can benefit from your experience too!

Sales Management Style – The Positive Motivator

“You can attract more bees with honey than with vinegar.” Though its a bit of a non sequitur, the intent of this cliche illustrates a truth in human relations. So, it doesn’t take tremendous genius to recognize that a Positive Motivator Management Style (for Sales or for any other discipline) is, generally, more productive. But, as they say “back home”, that can say easy and do hard. The remaining question is how do you best implement this truth, as a Sales Leader?


A great lesson on this topic comes from Harvey McKay’s renowned book “Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive.” McKay’s encouragement is to “catch people doing something right”, to harness the power of praise. This has been the foundation for what I’ve put into practice and I’d like to share one of my favorite examples:

Its not uncommon to hear that Sales “is a numbers game”. And, just as there is truth in the “bees to honey” cliche, its hard to deny that Sales clearly has a numbers-driven quality. My experience has been that Inside/Direct Sales Organizations are more comprehensive in doing this … capturing “talk time”, number of calls (inbound and outbound), time between calls, conversion rate, etc. Unfortunately, its also not uncommon to see numbers used in a punitive way in a Sales Organization. Ironically, one of my favorite stories of taking a different, Positive Motivator, approach to this comes from work I did in the Call Center of a premiere Direct Sales Organization … Nautilus. Here, we developed a program called “The Voice of Nautilus”, with the intent being to “catch people doing something right” and to encourage them to do more and more of it. In the Direct Sales arena there are certain basic “measurements” (some of them being legal requirements) that must be met. “The Voice of Nautilus” takes those things into full consideration but it focuses more on how well a Sales Professional actually “helped” a Customer. A good example here would be, did the Sales Professional hear that a Customer was interested in a specific device and then proceed to sell the features of the device or did they listen closely enough to hear that the Customer was calling because they wanted to be thinner and in better shape by the time of their next class reunion, thus the Sales Professional proposed the right device along with all the right accessories, a weight loss program, etc.? In addition to being a source of growth for individual Sales Professionals, this program is a source of development for the Direct Sales Organization, in general, inasmuch as it involves Sales Supervisors listening to recorded calls and submitting the calls they select to the Sales Training staff for determination of the winner/s.

Regardless of its implementation, having a Positive Motivator Style in your Sales Management is another foundational key to having a successful Sales Organization. What are your thoughts on this? What are your favorite stories, along these lines, that you’d like to share?!