Adapt to changing customer needs to win sales

Fresh thinking, differentiation, and market insight lead to competitive advantage

Customers’ needs are changing really fast today. But even in this climate of constant change, price remains a consideration; but it is now rarely the most important factor when customers choose one supplier over another. Suppliers therefore need to better understand what it is that customer’s are really looking for, which may be some way away from the supplier’s positioning.   They need to provide more than just a cost effective cure for their customer’s pains.

There are simply too many vendors out there in the marketplace who just cure their customers’ pains; yet whilst they may take some pain away, they do not leave the customer any stronger after than they were before.   The customers’ own businesses are no further  forward as a result of the money they have just spent, worse; it has taken time and effort on the part of the customer, as well as money for the supplier to just remove their pain yet there has been no tangible gain.  They are in fact only where they would have been some time ago had the problem not occurred, except for being a bit poorer. 

Suppliers in today’s cut throat market need to clearly differentiate themselves by evidencing to their customers what value they create for their customers’ business and showing clearly how they leave their customers better prepared to win business than other suppliers.  Using this approach, customers businesses will not just be pain free, but will also become stronger after the supplier’s intervention than they were before.

Many sales methodologies around in today’s market are based on thinking that originated in the combative sales marketplaces of the 80’s and 90’s and no longer give companies that competitive edge.  Why, because the focus is too rooted in polishing up the supplying organisations offerings to make them look better than the competitions offerings.  This is often misnamed ‘Value Add’.

Is this enough?  Surely the focus today needs to be on giving the customer a real competitive edge in their marketplace, not just on supplying more ‘stuff.’  Sales methodologies that do not apply this approach are past their sell-by date.  They struggle to create competitive advantage or fresh thinking in the companies that implement them.  They are no longer unique and fail to stir up any excitement in the minds of the customer.  The game has moved on.

The approaches pioneered by some sales methodologies still seem very introspective rather than customer centric.  Fine, every company needs to know its core competencies – understand its strengths and weaknesses when compared to its competitors – but the key element of any strategy is customers: what’s hurts them, what heals them, what makes them stand out above the rest in the market, what pleases them, what inspires them, what makes them or you more attractive, what they perceive to be ‘value’, and what triggers an action to buy from you.

This is the message that is being given on a daily basis by Andrew Dugdale, Chairman of ICDL (Intellectual Capital Development Limited).  Dugdale states:

“ICDL’s customers are always saying that they believe ICDL to be unique in our ability to drive net new thinking that results directly in competitive advantage and differentiation for our customers.”

Don’t push; pull in customers!

Pushing products or solutions at customers with no understanding of what ails them does not create competitive advantage, nor added value. So while it is important to act like a medical doctor to understand their pains, and the causes of the day-to-day problems they face within their internal and external operating environments, it is also an imperative for them to look fitter and more attractive than anyone else in the market after your engagement (as opposed to just feeling well and great about themselves). Sometimes customers need help to realise their own potential too; there may be opportunities that they may not have yet realised, they may not know why they have the challenges that face them, they may not understand their competitors, and how to turn things to their advantage or how to become the market and marketing leader, and so on.

The time has passed for the ‘walking product catalogue’ sales person – they are the 21st |Centuries dinosaurs.  Without detailed knowledge and training in how to achieve maximum performance, companies will not be able to compete as effectively as they could or should within their chosen markets. The trouble is that most companies take an introspective view of their market, looking at the outside world from their perspective, rather than an outside-in approach. Outside-in uniquely enables a full understand of every element of the competitive environment, particularly customer needs, and the emergent market drivers achieved through structured market analysis.

ICDL goes beyond healing

Additional value only comes from going beyond the healing of customers’ pains. Value is only partly achieved by selling customers products, services and solutions that match their expectations and needs. ICDL takes its customers one step further than anyone else in the market.   Simon Dando, Business Development Director of Carillion Construction has the following to say about ICDL:
“ICDL has changed the way Carillion does business by changing the mindsets of our account directors to a focus on the language and value of our client’s customers, rather than focusing internally into our world. As a result, Carillion is now always two steps ahead of our competition and fully engaged at a strategic level with our customers”.

Step into the customers’ shoes

Jeff Tull in chapter 2 of his book, ‘Exceptional Selling -- How The Best Connect and Win In High Stakes Sales’, says that salespeople should “step into customer’s shoes. The biggest mistake is to assume that customers recognise all of their problems, understand the financial impact of those problems, are able to establish problem priority in terms of resolution, and will be compelled to act”. Another false assumption is about customers knowing exactly what intrinsic value they will get from buying solutions from one company over that of the others – each of whom actually have very similar propositions. This leads to customers focusing on the base value of price and availability, which is not what you want to do as a sales organisation: it will only lead to battle for ever narrowing profit margins.

Customers don’t always understand value

So there are a couple of lessons that emerge from this: ‘Differentiate or die’, says Jack Trout, never assume that customer knows what kind of value your company and its offerings represent. Evidence has to be provided that more value will be added by working with you as opposed to one of the others within your market. A value proposition alone is not sufficient, , there may need to be more of an educational process to enable you to position your products higher up the value chain and this includes training salespeople to avoid being presumptuous:

“I told the customer how much more valuable our solution would be to them than our competitors’ solutions, but they simply didn’t get it”.

How many times must long suffering sales managers hear this plaintive cry, the cry of the 21st Century sales dinosaur, before a new way of thinking is adopted?

Dugdale was recently interviewed as part of the development of the Institute of Direct Marketing’s new B2B marketing qualification, and explained the process:

“Initially the needs of end users within any given market need to be clearly understood, why, because it is then that you can be really sure you understand the drivers within a market.  This is achieved through a number of different research methodologies (field, desk, quantitative, qualitative etc). The market needs are then analysed out and mapped to your organisation’s capabilities.  Additionally, it is important to understand at what stage of the market cycle you are entering, (early adopter, fast follower, mass market or commodity for example) and this positioning then also needs to be mapped against the optimal market cycle positioning for your organisation.”

“Following this, if the risk/return parameters look good, a capability analysis is carried out, which includes a consideration of the company’s ability to fulfil the identified market needs whilst creating competitive advantage and incremental market value, which is mapped onto an RoI/Net Future Value matrix. Finally, if all the indicators are positive, the gap between current capabilities and optimised capabilities (offering alignment) needs to be filled...”

‘Every business in is a growth business’

ICDL essentially agrees with Ram Charan and Noel Tichy in their assertion that ‘Every business is a growth business’, published by Three Rivers Press. “Growth is a hot topic today. Business leaders who have been through the wringers of repetitive downsizing, re-engineering, and all the rest, are discovering that they must now focus not only on operational excellence but also on growth. Incremental market share gains won’t secure a future for their companies. There’s nowhere else to go now; literally, they either grow or die”, they explain. The two authors stress the following:

1. There is no such thing as a mature business…so get this out of your head…
2. Not all growth is good…but good growth is sustainable, profitable and capital efficient…
3. Growth is a mentality created by a company’s leadership…and this includes the leadership and skills development of salespeople…
4. Balanced growth is the key to prosperity…
5. Growing is less risky than not growing…

Growth is achieved by knowing your markets, your suppliers, your customers and even their own customers. From a sales perspective this means that companies have to shift, as Walt Zeglinki argues in his whitepaper - ‘Are you ready for a sales makeover?’ - from being just product sellers to problem solvers. This means that successful companies will define their value in terms of the problems they solve for the customer (including differentiation and market attractiveness), and not simply by the product they sell. A solution selling capability depends on four elements too: solution positioning, marketing support, organisational alignment, and value-driven sales processes. It’s no longer a case of selling on the basis of the bells and whistles of the product, which won’t necessarily talk the language that customer needs to hear in order to perceive sufficient added value, to buy it.

When your sales approach needs reinvigorating and you are looking for a vendor, perhaps you should ask yourself if their approach is really going to create significant competitive advantage, differentiation, and of course value for your customers, and their customers.

By Graham Jarvis MA, ACIM, MCIJ, M IDM for ICDL (http://www.thebusinessaccelerators.com)
Editor, The Marketing Leaders (http://www.themarketingleaders.com)