The Power of Differentiated Value Crafting a Winning Sales Pitch

Think about it this way: when you’re trying to sell something, especially software, it’s easy to just show off all the cool things your product can do. This is like giving a product walkthrough. Many people, especially founders from technical backgrounds, incline towards this because they want to avoid sounding like that pushy “used car salesman” stereotype – someone seen as lying or just trying to get your money without caring about what you actually need.

However, just showing features or being able to haggle on price isn’t what actually wins deals. What really makes a customer choose you is having a super clear reason why they should pick you over anyone else. This unique reason is your differentiated value. It’s the unique thing you can do for customers that nobody else can.

Why is Understanding Your Differentiated Value So Important?

When you don’t clearly understand and communicate your differentiated value, a few problems appear:

• You Sound Like Everyone Else
  Without clarity on what makes you different, your message becomes generic. You might talk about saving time or making things easier, only to hear, “So does everyone else”.

• It’s Easy to Bend the Truth (Even by Accident)
  When you don’t have a strong, clear unique value, it leaves a “void”. Salespeople might then start “making stuff up a little bit” or stretching the truth about what the product can do. This can lead to customers being unhappy later.

• You Hide Your Best Card
  Smaller companies might understand their differentiated features but fail to translate them into clear, significant value, often burying their biggest advantages amongst a list of smaller benefits.

How to Find and Use Your Differentiated Value

To fix this, you need a clear process to find your unique value:

• Who are the alternatives?
  What would a customer do if you didn’t exist (including the status quo like spreadsheets or internal processes), and who else would be on a customer’s shortlist?
  
• What have we got that they don’t?
  List your unique features, functions, and capabilities.
  
• Translate Features into Value:
  For each unique thing, keep asking “So what?” to get to the main benefit for the customer. Integrated into Salesforce, so what? You have all the data, so what? You can see if training changed sales data, so what? You can measure if time to make quota went down, which saves significant money.

By deeply understanding this core differentiated value, your entire sales team can orient their conversations around it.

Being a Helpful Guide, Not a Selfish Salesperson

Understanding your unique value also helps you avoid the second thing people hate about the used car salesman stereotype: selfishness. A typical product demo often focuses entirely on the seller’s product, not on helping the customer figure out their best option. It’s selfish because you make the customer do the work of figuring out why your features matter or how you compare to others.

Instead, try to be helpful and act as a guide for the customer. Put yourself in their shoes: B2B buyers often haven’t bought software like yours before, and making a decision feels risky. They worry about picking the wrong thing. Many B2B deals end with no decision because the buyer is too afraid of making a mistake.

Studies show buyers want vendors to give them perspectives on the market (including competitors) and help them understand the different choices.

A helpful sales conversation should start not with your product, but with a “setup”:

• Share Your Market View
  Talk about how you see the market and the different kinds of solutions available.
  
• Discuss Alternatives
  Help the customer weigh the pros and cons of the different options out there, including competitors.
  
• Give a Recommendation
  Suggest what you think is the best approach for a company like theirs.
  
• Show How You Fit
  Then, show how your product delivers on that recommended approach, focusing the demo on how you provide that unique, differentiated value.

The Result: Calm Confidence

This way of selling, driven by clear differentiated value and a helpful approach, gives you calm confidence. You know exactly where you’re the best choice and are willing to fight for those deals. Crucially, you’re also willing to walk away from deals where you’re not the best fit..

By being a guide and helping customers make the right decision for them (even if it’s not you), you build trust and make your pitches truly helpful instead of just salesy.

This approach can be especially helpful for smaller companies. They can change their message (their positioning) more quickly than big companies whose brand is already set in stone. Interestingly, existing customers usually don’t care about positioning changes unless the price goes up or promised features disappear.

In short, clearly defining and communicating your differentiated value is key to creating a powerful sales story that shows customers exactly why you’re the right choice.

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(This article draws on concepts presented by April Dunford in her talk “How Your Differentiated Value Should Drive Your Sales Pitch” at Business of Software Conference.)

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