Being Really Different Takes Time

Everyone wants to differentiate themselves in the eyes of buyers. Yet they often pick the most conventional, beige, bland and predictable ways of demonstrating it. They pick the latest fads or are forced to do something that once worked, 15 years ago, for their manager and is now labelled as a “methodology”.

There are some great suggestions out there, for example sending hand written notes to prospects and clients as a means of standing out in the digital age. Another maybe connecting with all your prospects and clients on LinkedIn. There so many great things one can do, but I think the real differentiator is not what you do, but how consistently you do it.

What happens with a lot of these initiatives, is sales people see an idea or a practice, they say “Wow, I’m gonna do that and make some more money.”  For the next two three weeks or so they stick with it, then the newness fades, it’s another thing to do, it becomes work, and they stop doing it.  What also fades along with the new habit, is the enthusiasm you had, the spark that something new brings, and the way you look at your work, customers, and selling.

So while you try something new every couple of months, your customers see another sales rep who moves from one trend to another, and just as he is getting hand written thank you cards from everyone all of a sudden, they all or most seem to stop at the same time.  The one that gets noticed as being different is the one that sticks with it.

So if you want to be different focus on two things.   The first is to be selective and thoughtful about the things you do that are visible to the buyer or impacts them.  While shock and awe have their place in sales, their impact is temporary, like a sugar high, clients will not remember or take into account at the time of decision.  However something as mundane as a pre-planned call schedule for the year, say a regiment of calling your top 20 clients at least once every six weeks, and then actually sticking with it and not using everyday things that should be anticipated as an excuse as to why it didn’t get done, gets noticed.  The goal is to have buyers say “Now, I don’t see others do it like that”.

Second, once you have selected these things, the real differentiator comes by sticking with it, do it as planned consistently and across the board.  Again, I want to stress, this is not doing things for the sake of doing them, they should add to the sale, but if you focus on the right things and keep doing them, you will be seen as different.  As you may have read in my other postings I have a clearly laid out contact strategy for prospects; a combination of touch-points that include e-mail, calls, voice mail, and now a few other medium for messaging prospects.  Based on predetermined rules and factor, they get a regularly scheduled contact from Renbor in the process of nurturing.  I regularly get feedback that one of the reasons I finally get the appointment and subsequent deal, is that I was consistent, respected the buyers timeline, but did go away like my competitors; not only do clients like that, they want their teams doing that.

If you start a blog or other interaction with the market, stick with it.  I see a lot of people start a blog, at first posting a couple of times a week, once a month, every six weeks, last May,…  So what ever it is you are going to do, the real difference is are you going to do it consistently and long enough to matter to the buyer.

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Related posts:

1. It Takes a Village…to Sell!
2. I Know What it Takes