And while prestigious performance awards from suppliers and
the positive message of appreciation for outstanding results that they convey
are an important prize for any Industrial Distributor or Application Service
Provider to receive, they are not easily earned or casually conferred. They are the official, ceremonial recognition
of months of determined preparation, application engineering, demonstration,
solution selling, negotiation, perseverance and success.
But if you were to ask me, or even better, a Customer...Why
did we win the order?... What set us apart ?...
What was different enough about us to convince the consulting engineer
to specify us or the customer to buy from us? What answer would we get? I am pretty sure that in most cases, it would
not be “PRICE”....at least I hope it would not be.
Under ideal circumstances, we need a strong economy and
healthy target industries that are growing and spending money, but these alone
do not guarantee Davis
I heard a speaker recently who insisted that we paint ourselves
into ‘Commodity Corner’ if we think that any of the following elements are what
make us special;
Great Customer
Service: Who doesn’t lay claim to great customer service, whether it’s true
or not
Quality: We have quality products that will do the
job, but so do many of our competitors
Our Reputation / Our
Brand: - Of course this is important.
We could not even open our doors day after day if Davis Controls had a bad
reputation, but how much business does this win?
Good Results: If
we didn’t produce good results, we wouldn’t even be here
Our Employees / Our
People / Our Team: Once again, who
doesn’t say this?
Expertise: Everyone says “We have Trained and
Knowledgeable sales reps”. I would be
the first to insist that Product knowledge is critical...and we do our best to provide
training where needed, but surely this must be presumed by every customer
Consistent and
Reliable: This is where I can put in a plug for Macola and e-Synergy and
our CRM and BAM software. These tools
help us to be consistent and reliable quickly, but these are only tools
We are Responsive...at
least I hope we are
We are Innovative…at
least I am told we are
Customers Trust
us / They have a Relationship with
us
All of these traits and characteristics of a corporate
formula for success are essential and I am convinced that we do them all pretty
well, but they are also expected by our customers. Collectively, they represent the minimum
requirements to even be in the game. Everybody
else is laying claim to these ‘unique differentiators’ too. They have become a
punch line and when we say them, we sound the same as everyone else.
When I heard this entire list of ‘essentials’ disqualified
as being “too essential” to every business to be claimed by any one business as
their differentiator, at first I thought, ‘WOW, that’s right. We need to identify and capitalize on something
that is so different and uniquely ours that it sets us apart from everyone else’.
When I heard the same argument a second time, I thought, ‘it’s
compelling, but something is just NOT right with the premise’. A winning combination of all of these things must
surely create a competitive advantage.
When I heard these ten important corporate attributes dismissed
as commodities for the third time, I realized what I didn’t agree with. Sure everyone claims to be uniquely expert in
some or all of these areas, but the truth is; they can’t all be. Everyone has products, some are better than
others. Everyone provides a service;
some do it better than others. Everyone has
a reputation – again, some are better than others, but the real flaw in the
argument is the suggestion that good people are commodities. In the same way that weak, unskilled,
untrained, unmotivated people are corporate liabilities, good people with superior
skills and strong values can and do make all the difference.
The ‘Magic Bullet’ is the people. It has to be! They cannot be dismissed.
And just as important as having good people, is having time
with good prospects. There is never
enough time. We don’t have enough of it
and neither does our customer. Success
begins with successfully arranging for a customer to see us and ends by making
the most with the time we are granted. Once
we have been given a sales opportunity, we can’t afford to waste it with an
ineffective or unproductive presentation.
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