Lee Salz, Founder and CEO of Sales Architects and author of the new book Sales Differentiation: 19 Powerful Strategies to Win More Deals at the Prices You Want, joins me again on this episode.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• How do your prospects feel when you claim to be the best and have the best product and service? How do you differentiate yourself with meaning? Buyers try to commoditize, which is a battle that sellers can’t win.
• Can you translate your passion for your differentiators into the buyer’s passion for your differentiators?
• Lee explains that positioning questions are always open-ended questions designed to help someone think differently about the solutions you offer.
• You have expertise in your solutions. The way to convey that expertise is not to lecture to your buyers. Lee gives a positioning question example for garbage removers.
• Position questions help people think differently about their problems. You introduce the buyer in a creative way to something they didn’t know. Lee gives a five-step process in his book for developing positioning questions.
• First, ask why this particular differentiator matters to a buyer. Second, in B2B, each buyer cares about different factors. Ask which audience cares about this differentiator?
• Third, ask when this differentiator matters to this audience. Fourth, based on those points, develop a positioning question mapped to that differentiator. Fifth, ask yourself what you will share about that positioning question.
• Differentiators involve a degree of difference — not uniqueness. Everything is copied too quickly for something to be unique. Forget the unique selling proposition. Work with your degrees of difference.
• Personal value differentiation is every salesperson’s opportunity to provide meaningful value beyond what their company brings to bear. Expertise allows you to counsel people so they make informed buying decisions.
• Business acumen allows you to talk the buyer’s language. Give the buyer the ability to see you as a resource in their business. Being responsive and anticipating needs gets you in when the buyer needs you. Act as an account manager.
• Lee suggests using the internet and industry associations to develop expertise on trends for your buyers. Your prospects will also teach you. Build relationships. Have experts on hand to refer to your clients as they may need.
• How can SDRs differentiate themselves? Lee relates it to a crime theory. Search for evidence of things that are going on inside a company, inside their competitors, and in trends in the industry. Use evidence to solve problems.