We have talked about \u201dcompetitive advantage\u201d here before, but it\u2019s been awhile and it\u2019s an important concept that bears repeating.<\/p>\n
Jaynie Smith is a consultant, best-selling author, and keynote speaker. She is also CEO of her company, Smart Advantage, Inc.\u00a0 I heard her speak about competitive advantage before a group of a dozen or so CEOs.\u00a0 To start her presentation, she said, \u201cYour customers have choices.\u00a0 They could do business with others, but they have chosen to do business with you.\u201d\u00a0 Then she asked, \u201cWhy?\u201d\u00a0 She went around the room asking each CEO for the reason his customers did business with his company instead of his competitors . . . essentially asking each for his company\u2019s competitive advantage.\u00a0 To learn what those CEOs said and how Jaynie Smith reacted to their answers, please continue reading below<\/p>\n
That\u2019s your competitive advantage? Really?\u00a0 You sure about that?<\/strong><\/p>\n Jaynie Smith posted the answers to her question, \u201cWhy do your customers choose to do business with you?\u201d on a white board. The answers were somewhat predictable:<\/p>\n Then she asked, \u201cIf I had all your competitors in a room and asked them the same question, what do you suppose their white board would look like?\u201d The assembled CEOs had to admit, \u201cYeah, it would look just like ours.\u201d\u00a0 The point was, a competitive price, good quality, on-time delivery, etc. are just the minimum requirements to get in the game, but they are not the competitive advantages that will truly differentiate you from everyone else.\u00a0 So how do you figure out your true competitive advantage?\u00a0 How do you learn what you do (or don\u2019t do) that causes your customers to choose you over your competitors?<\/p>\n Jaynie Smith\u2019s answer, \u201cYou ask \u2018em.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s right, you ask them. You don\u2019t do a telephone survey and you don\u2019t do a postcard \u201ccustomer satisfaction survey.\u201d\u00a0 You sit down, face-to-face with whoever is making the buying decision, and you interview them.\u00a0 You acknowledge that they could have chosen others, and ask them point blank, \u201cWhy us?\u201d\u00a0 And this should not be an activity you delegate to the salesperson on the account . . . the relationship there may be such that the account is going to say what he or she thinks you want to hear, not the unvarnished truth.\u00a0 Find others in your organization who are capable of conducting a good interview and who are more likely to elicit candid responses.\u00a0 If that\u2019s not an option, you may have to hire an outside marketer who can conduct the interviews on your behalf.<\/p>\n Many CEOs will argue that they\u2019ve been in business for umpteen years, that they know their customers very well, and that they know exactly why their customers have chosen them to do business with. Not so says Jaynie Smith.<\/p>\n When she is hired to do the customer survey work, she first interviews all her client\u2019s customer-facing people (marketing people, sales people, customer service people, etc.), and she asks them why they believe their customers choose them over others. Then, when she completes her interviews with her client\u2019s customers, she compares what the client told her (about why customers do business with them) vs. what the customers themselves told her.\u00a0 She says there\u2019s a disconnect 100% of the time . . . sometimes subtle, sometimes stark, but always a disconnect of some kind.\u00a0 For instance, she may say to a customer, \u201cI understand you do business with my client\u00a0 because of their on-time delivery.\u201d\u00a0 And the customer may respond, \u201cNo!\u00a0 We buy from them because they\u2019re the only ones who have the product in the color we want.\u00a0 And to be honest, their on-time delivery ain\u2019t that great.\u201d<\/p>\n Out of this customer survey research, you will get two extraordinarily valuable pieces of information:<\/p>\n So. Do you really know what your competitive advantage is?\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t asked your customers, you probably don\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We have talked about \u201dcompetitive advantage\u201d here before, but it\u2019s been awhile and it\u2019s an important concept that bears repeating. Jaynie Smith is a consultant, best-selling author, and keynote speaker. She is also CEO of her company, Smart Advantage, Inc.\u00a0 I heard her speak about competitive advantage before a group of a dozen or so<\/p>\n\n
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