How to differentiate when…you’re not that different
Photo by Nick Fewings
B2B sales and marketing is crazy FUN!! I’m serious…I love it.
I’d always considered myself a B2C girl - started my career in an ad agency, launched a consumer products brand after grad school and then was lucky enough to serve as an advisor to both start-up and iconic CPG brands.
But after spending 11 years deep in the trenches with sales and marketing teams at the second largest packaging company on the planet…I’m a convert.
I think what I love most is the challenge.
The challenge of pushing the B2B world into more traditional B2C spaces like customer journey mapping & experience, content, connection, engagement and loyalty and treat our buyer stakeholders like humans!
The challenge of forging new ways of working, collaborating and innovating with our customers to create value for ALL stakeholders – consumers, the environment, the brand, operations & supply chain - and us.
And finally, the challenge of differentiating in spaces where customers can often find alternative products without completely disrupting their system.
For those of you who own a highly proprietary product, technology or process in a white space that nobody can touch, those challenges might not be as challenging - at least for a while.
But that’s not the reality for the rest of us. We sell products and services made out of the same stuff everybody else has access to.
Yet, we ALL seek to create value - value for consumers, customers, shareholders, employees, the world.
So, if you’re not the low-cost leader, the question becomes…how to you get really smart (and creative) about value proposition development?
How do you change the world when what you’re really doing is building things out of sticks and mud?
THE ANSWER: Nail these 3 things.
01 You’ve got to be smarter than everyone else
It’s literally a matter of (your business’) life and death that you deeply understand the market, your customers and individual stakeholders within your customer organizations. That insight will empower you to be laser-focused on where you should play and who you should be talking to. Laser-focused targeting will also identify the value you need to sell and how to articulate that value – whether it’s positioning existing products & services or, it’s bundling products & services to create solutions that uniquely deliver on unmet customer needs.
I’ve worked with large, highly-matrixed corporate teams to repackage existing capabilities, adjust processes and remove layers to empower quick decision-making to support a growing customer need – before that need hit our competitor’s radar. The result…partnership, trust and growth with our largest and most strategic customers.
It’s easier said than done for sure, but with the right leadership sponsorship and a healthy dose of self-awareness and humility…you CAN influence large-scale change.
02 You’ve got to make your customer smarter than everyone else
Creating solutions that help your customer solve for their unique challenges is one way to make your customer smarter than everyone else. Another way is to take the time to understand exactly what their journey looks and feels like and what type of experience (content, engagement, support) they need from you at every point along that journey to be successful.
And make no mistake…their journey isn’t linear, it doesn’t resemble a funnel and it’ll never be limited to one channel. The old ways of moving “deals” through a pipeline are obsolete. Providing your customer with valuable expertise and playing a large role in helping them shine is one of the easiest ways to differentiate and win loyalty.
03 You’ve got to build the right team
And finally…the smartest strategy won’t save you if your team isn’t a high functioning, well-oiled machine that’s expertly aligned with your business strategy.
And while the right people, the right structure and the right culture will look different across organizations, there are a few things that hold true for both - whether you’re establishing a new team or optimizing existing talent.
Leadership is not negotiable: Nobody ever got anywhere great with shitty leadership. Leadership is about establishing a north star that your team can rally around, be passionate about and want to jump through fiery hoops to deliver on. It’s building a vision, empowering your team and always having their backs. The buck stops with you.
Communication is the key: Relationships, teams, businesses, governments - all will fall at the hands of sub-par communication. The unfortunate reality is that not every manager is a great communicator. And I’m 100% convinced that in those cases, that manager is ineffective and his/her team is at risk – and that’s a huge liability for your organization. It takes work – especially for large companies – to truly know how well your leaders are communicating (aka leading), but conducting consistent assessments – whether 360 evaluations or employee engagement surveys – and (really) acting on the insight generated is a great place to start.
Sales & marketing are one: Sales and marketing were put on this planet to do the same thing…drive growth. It’s time for us to stop talking about “aligning” sales and marketing (best case) or keeping fingers crossed they don’t murder each other (worst case) and rethink how we organize, structure and incentivize these teams. Whether it’s a unified commercial engine or a customer partnership team, we’ll never differentiate (and win) if we engage with our customers in the exact same way everybody else does.
These are our sweet spots at Sticks & Mud. We advise, coach and empower your sales and marketing teams to target the right customers, with the right solutions, in the right way to create advantage and win (and have a great time doing it).