By Andrew Kent

Take a close look at your standard pitch deck, the “about us” section on your corporate home page, or your PR material.  Highlight every instance of the words “leading,” “unique,” “solution,” or “innovative.”  And especially find all instances of the phrase “we work to understand our customers’ unique needs and then build custom solutions to meet those needs.”  Then hit the delete key.  Because every time you use one of those buzzwords, you are telling your customers, “we are exactly the same as everyone else.”

See, unlike Journey, you and your competitors aren’t “worlds apart.”

The more we try to play up our differences, the more things sound the same.  PR expert Adam Sherk recently analyzed the 98 most common sales, marketing, and PR buzzwords used in company communications, and the results are hilarious and devastating.  Here are the top 10:

It’s eye-opening, really.  By definition, there can be only one leader in any industry—and 205,900 companies all think they’re it.  75,500 companies think they’re the “best” or the “top.”  30,400 think they’re “unique.”  “Solution” also makes an appearance at #7—so if you think that calling your offering a “solution” differentiates you, think again.

So if everyone’s saying they’re the leading solution, what does the customer think?  “Great—give me 10% off.” 

In my years at the Sales Executive Council, I have never once met a member who doesn’t think their product beats the socks off their competitors’.  And it’s understandable…after all, why would we want to work for a company whose product is second-rate—especially when our job is to sell that product? 

But what the utter sameness of language here tells us is that, ironically, a strategy of more precisely describing our products’ advantages over the competitions’ is destined to have the exact opposite effect—we simply sound like everyone else.  

Our members’ customers told us the same thing back in 2008—and it’s something that is, quite frankly, a little hard to hear: that as great as your products are… they’re not that much different from the competition.  That no matter how much you tell customers, “we’re here to create quantifiable business value”… the next sales rep through the door is saying the exact same thing.  

(In fact, I talked to a procurement executive at a food company who told me, “Every time I hear the word ‘value,’ my defenses go up, because that’s when I know they’re trying to sell me something.”)

Just like a parent can tell twins apart in a way no one else can, we can see our products’ nuances—but customers can’t. 

Thankfully, hope is not lost.  It’s still possible to differentiate yourself from the competition.  The trick is not to describe your differences, but to make customers value them.  And to do that, remember these two things:

1. Be memorable, not agreeable.  It’s all very nice to have a business conversation about profits and capabilities, or a relationship conversation around sports and people’s kids…But unless you frame your conversation around an edgy or unique insight, the customer will forget everything you said as soon as you walk away.  Being different sounds risky, but it’s better than being forgettable.
2. Build a pitch that leads to your solution, not with it.  Before even talking about your capabilities, teach customers about a problem they didn’t even know they had—one that you can solve better than your competitors.  Only then should you lead into the details of your specific solution.

This is what we call “Insight Selling”—and it really is the leading, innovative, magical solution.

Related posts:

1. Don’t Lead Your Customers Into the Desert
2. Want to Eliminate a Price War? Eliminate Your Competition.
3. Are Mixed Messages from Sales and Marketing Leaving Your Customers Confused?
4. Why Words Matter
5. Sales Lessons From the Oil Spill