Your People Do Not Make You Different

This is a tough differentiation strategy to sell.

What this statement presupposes is that you have better people than your competitors. Somehow your company was able to acquire all of the good people available, all the real talent, leaving none for your competitors. This means that all of the best people prefer to work for your company, universally find that your company is the best place to work, regardless of role, regardless of location, and regardless of what other companies offer.

This statement loses more credibility when your dream client has heard the very same thing from your competitors. If everyone says that they have the best people, they cannot all be telling the truth. They can also very easily look around their own company and recognize that they have people of varying ability and performance, and they have a tough time believing that your company is any different.

The truth is that you don’t have all the best people. You are lucky to have some of the best people, and it is likely that your competitors have as many, give or take. You don’t have all the conscientious employees who care deeply about their work while your competitors suffer with employees who have a very casual attitude towards work. You don’t have all the engaged employees and your competitor all the disengaged, clock-punchers.

What you may have is a crack account team for this particular client, one with a set of experiences and who has worked together long enough to play the game at a higher level than most other teams. You may also have an approach to serving that client that allows for better results with a few good people and processes that allow for better results. You might also have a set of insights about how to do things that allows you produce better results for your client.

The reason you differentiate yourself, your company, and your solution from your competitors is to create a preference. When what you use to differentiate does not achieve that goal, then you must look somewhere else for a competitive advantage. It’s also important to remember that as the person selling, you are a large part, maybe the largest part, of the differentiation. Make sure how you describe that differences that make you different are credible.