The first time buyers and users of your product or service or solution will be disappointed by the challenges and limitations of what you sell. Because they lack experience, they are easily frustrated, and they are susceptible to being wooed away…
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Playing the game is not the same thing as playing to win. You can play the game, simply going through the motions, without intention, without being mindful, and without a spirit of competition (found in this book). This is nothing more than…
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In Eat Their Lunch: Winning Customers Away from Your Competition, I wrote about the four levels of value: Level 1: the value of your product, Level 2: the value of the experience, Level 3: the tangible result you produce, and Level 4: your ability…
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I am fascinated by football. I am spending more time watching games (both college and professional), and I am reading and studying to understand how championship teams are built—and sustained over time.
Football is an excellent metaphor for the…
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Your very best targets, your dream clients, are almost always the most difficult to penetrate. They have deep relationships, they’re loyal, and your competitor didn’t win their business because they couldn’t create value. The status quo is…
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There are gaps worth noticing when it comes to pricing power.
If your client’s clients don’t have pricing power, they will expect your client to help absorb their weakness. Your client’s client can’t capture value, so your…
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You don’t want to be a commodity. You don’t want to price like a commodity. And you surely don’t want to be disposable or interchangeable like a commodity. If you want to be something more strategic, then you cannot behave transactionally.
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A few years ago, I spoke to a big sales organization. Their leadership team was brilliant. They were all on message, and the message was powerful. But it fell flat with the sales force. I wasn’t sure why it didn’t inspire them. For some reason…
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John writes:
Continue ReadingI am a landscape designer/landscape contractor. I just took a call from a client about a drafting a landscape design. They said they had also contacted one of my competitors and I really wanted to say, “Oh, they’re great…
