Through our research of what drives customer loyalty (willingness to buy, willingness to continue buying, willingness to recommend), thousands of our members’ end-customers have told us that the thing they value most…is for a supplier to challenge their thinking.

Customers value a supplier that provides them with a different way of thinking about their business and how to compete more successfully.  Essentially, customers want to be taught.

But it’s not enough to teach customers simply because they value it.  You’ve got to get PAID for it.  The last thing you would want is to teach customers to value something that your organization is not uniquely positioned to solve.  One of our members accurately described that as “teaching the customer into the desert.”

Instead, you need teaching that reframes the way the customer assigns value.  Teaching that leads customers to value the areas where you uniquely outperform your competitors.  Teaching that leads to a commercial result.  Hence the term we’ve coined here at the Council, commercial teaching.

Now, to teach in this manner, you first have to have the knowledge around how you’re uniquely different from your competitors.  After all, it would be impossible to lead customers to value your unique strengths if you don’t even know what they are in the first place. 

Here are a set of questions worth considering in order to identify your unique strengths as an organization:

• How does your company uniquely help customers in your target segment solve problems or create business opportunity?
• Why should these customers buy from us over any other competitor?
• What can we offer that no one else can?  (the answer might not be a discrete capability per se, but perhaps a combination of capabilities.)

After you’ve answered these questions, here’s a litmus test for the unique strength(s) that you’ve identified:  How well positioned are your primary competitors to offer the capabilities you’ve identified?

Here’s something else to consider…do the unique strengths you’ve identified include any of the following terms— innovative, leading-edge, trusted advisor, solutions-oriented, sustainable, green, etc.?   If so, you may want to revisit the word unique (a quick Google search of “innovative, manufacturing” brought up 15 million hits!).

In other words, be careful not to breathe your own exhaust. You may be more innovative than your competitors but do your customers really see it that way? Would something as simple as a pricing discount sway them to the competition?   If yes, then you may have not landed on your unique strength as a supplier yet.

For more helpful tips in identifying your underappreciated, unique strengths, click here.

Related posts:

1. Lead to the ROI, Not With It
2. Are Mixed Messages from Sales and Marketing Leaving Your Customers Confused?
3. Want to Eliminate a Price War? Eliminate Your Competition.
4. Why Would a Company WANT to Be in Your Key Account Program?
5. The New Meaning of Customer Centricity