In a world where we are seemingly trying to differentiate ourselves from the competition, perhaps one of the lessons we are learning in these current times is to get back to basics. I’m talking about being better human beings and connecting with our clients, making their lives better and solving the issues that they are faced with. Is that any different to the next sales guy down the road if they have that same attitude? No, does it matter. No.

Are you in competition with other people. Yes, sure you are, in so far as it should drive you to be continuously strive for improvement and furthering yourself, but in reality if you are so totally focused on what other people are doing then you are losing sight of the real objective. To highlight this, let me tell you a very real story… you may have heard it, it’s about a bank who cleverly marketed a product that so attracted it’s customers in being so different that it was highly sought after. Other banks became jealous and in striving to outdo the other marketed ever more attractive different and complex offerings to it’s customers until both they and their customers didn’t have the first idea what they were selling and buying. And of course we now realise that these very attractive products weren’t at all good for us at all – part of the problem was that banks were pre-occupied with being different and interesting, rather than actually asking a very important question “Is this product going to help my customer?”.

Supposing you are selling the exact same product to another company. What is the ‘difference that makes the difference’ that makes one person buy from you over that of the other? You. You are the difference.

Even where you have a product offering that is uniquely different, I still think that the ‘difference that makes the difference’ is you. Problems and solutions are reasons why people buy but a reason isn’t necessarily an emotion. Emotion is strongly linked with what makes people buy a particular product from a particular person and that emotion is formed not by the product but the person.

Do you have to be different? No, you just have to be yourself, to be truthful, listen, ask questions, solve problems, enquire. If the sales person down the road is doing the same – great! Good for them and for you. There really aren’t enough great sales people. You have nothing to fear from them. If they aren’t great – good for you also. In each case you should just be concentrating on your own performance and not get side tracked by other issues.