Question: “How do you provide a solution when selling a commodity?”
Answer:
Great question. On the surface, it seems almost like a contradiction in terms – “If it’s a commodity, how can it be a solution?”
Before I begin, let me
suggest you go to my website and read the article entitled, “Selling Commodities.”
One of my clients sells
what might be the ultimate commodity – petroleum products. We’re talking glitzy stuff like diesel fuel and gasoline here. Honestly, not a whole lot of snap and sizzle with those products. Yet they have expanded their business by millions of dollars and literally hundreds of customers in the past few years – without significant discounting.
How can that be? Because of a mindset. If you are going to become successful at selling commodities, you must embrace the same mindset. The mindset looks at all the issues surrounding the
commodity product as the benefit and the solution, not the product itself.
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For example, you may be
selling sawdust. It’s the same sawdust that two of your competitors sell. All three of you buy it from the same sawmill, at the same price. Your customers order it by the truckload from you.
How do you create a solution out of sawdust? Look at all the issues surrounding the sawdust. Can you deliver it quicker or closer to the end-user than everyone else? Maybe everybody else dumps it
in pile, and you offer to put it in the bin from which the customer retrieves it. Result? You have saved the customer a step in his process, thus saving him money by looking at the delivery of the product, not the product itself.
How about packaging, warranties, terms, billing, the way they order the product, etc. All of these can be customized for the individual buyer, resulting in higher value to that customer, and a reason to buy
sawdust from you instead of the competition.
The customer’s decision to
buy a product is never based solely on the product itself. Lots of factors determine what they buy and from whom they buy it. Add to the list above such things as the history between the two companies and your personal relationship, and you get a sense of what you can customize to create a solution for your customer.
Throughout the history of mankind, successful people have been disciplined people. At some point in their development, they have discovered the power that lies in discipline. And they chose, with
an act of willfulness and intentionality, to pursue disciplines. As a result, they rise above the pack on the basis of the strength of their wills and their ability to discipline themselves to do the right things, consistently, methodically and regularly.
Everyone needs a bit of inspiration, education and motivation.
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