I want you to be really honest: are you selling widgets, or are you selling value? These are two very, very different things.
Are You Selling Widgets?
Many companies — especially, especially technology companies — fall into the trap of selling widgets. What does that mean?
To find out, take a look at your website. I want you to be really honest. Which one sounds more like your company and website, A or B?
A
- Your company is using all sorts of industry buzzwords
- Your website is talking about what your technology does, and how it works
B
- Your company skips industry jargon and speaks in plain English
- Your website is talking about the value that your brand provides to your potential customers and existing customers
Now is the time to be really honest with yourself. If your company sounds more like company A, you’re selling widgets, and you’re going to fall into the feature trap.
What Is the Feature Trap?
Being in the feature trap means that you’re taking all of your prospective customers way down into the muck. And when that happens, they’re looking at two things:
- Do you have the same features as the other guy?
- Do you have a cheaper price than the other guy?
So now you’re way down competing on features and price. We don’t want to be there!
Time to Level Up
Where we want to be is upleveled and selling on value. We want to be thinking about what the extreme pain that our customers have is. We want to really, really get into customer personas, and really understand, “How are we going to solve that pain point for them?”
Think about that busy executive whose neck is on the line — their burning problem could be solved if they had your product. That’s where your messaging needs to be. That’s where your brand needs to be connecting with them.
The Bottom Line
If you’re down in the muck, you’re just going to be mired in the details. When that happens, you’re just selling widgets. Where you get repeat customers, and loyalty, and bigger deals, and more pipeline, is selling value.
Giddy up!