{"id":1953,"date":"2009-03-16T15:33:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-16T20:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/03\/the-downward-spiral-to-commoditization\/"},"modified":"2009-03-16T15:19:10","modified_gmt":"2009-03-16T20:19:10","slug":"the-downward-spiral-to-commoditization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/03\/the-downward-spiral-to-commoditization\/","title":{"rendered":"The Downward Spiral To Commoditization"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re fans of Jeff Thull here at <em>The Hire Sense<\/em> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salesopedia.com\/index.php\/sales-advice-articles3-10750\/168-sales-advice\/1818-driving-forces-of-commoditization\" target=\"_blank\">his latest article on the Salesopedia.com<\/a> only supports our belief.\u00a0 Anyone who has been in sales longer than a day has seen a sea change in the customer relationship over the past couple of years.\u00a0 Rapid commoditization is a huge problem even for \u201cunique\u201d solutions.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the crux of what is happening (emphasis mine):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Seeking competitive differentiation through increasing uniqueness and complexity can be a deadly double-edged sword, especially if <strong>building that differentiation exceeds the needs<\/strong> and understanding of your customers.\u00a0 You and your competition may believe you have a high-value product or service, but if your customers can\u2019t comprehend, calculate or measure that value, they see a sameness and will respond by ignoring the features they do not need or simply won\u2019t care.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Many sales hours are wasted building differentiation that may, or may not, be of vital interest to the prospect.\u00a0 This is also known as qualifying and it is in great demand in this economy.<\/p>\n<p>Thull provides 4 suggestions for handling the downward spiral to commoditization.\u00a0 Here is a taste of one suggestion:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In the complex sale, the search for a mythical buyer &#8211; \u201cthe decision maker\u201d &#8211; is fruitless. Today the majority of decisions, quality decisions, are the result of a consensus building effort \u2013 an effort that the best of sales professionals orchestrate with multiple people either deciding on or influencing the decision to buy. It is your responsibility to manage the issues of the transaction from multiple perspectives. You must connect your unique value offer to each individual in the context of his or her job responsibilities and their own self-interest. Using the same approach from middle management up through the C-Level will prove to be futile.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.salesopedia.com\/index.php\/sales-advice-articles3-10750\/168-sales-advice\/1818-driving-forces-of-commoditization\" target=\"_blank\">Read the entire thing\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re fans of Jeff Thull here at The Hire Sense and his latest article on the Salesopedia.com only supports our belief.\u00a0 Anyone who has been in sales longer than a day has seen a sea change in the customer relationship over the past couple of years.\u00a0 Rapid commoditization is a huge problem even for \u201cunique\u201d solutions. Here is the crux of what is happening (emphasis mine): Seeking competitive differentiation through increasing uniqueness and complexity can be a deadly double-edged sword, especially if building that differentiation exceeds the needs and understanding of your customers.\u00a0 You and your competition may believe you have a high-value product or service, but if your customers&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/03\/the-downward-spiral-to-commoditization\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[1259,1260,1262,1263,1261,258],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-vv","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1953"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1955,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953\/revisions\/1955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. The path to wp-cache-phase1.php in wp-content/advanced-cache.php must be fixed! -->