Competitive Advantage

As a sales professional, what gives you your competitive advantage in the market place?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snowman

As a sales professional, what gives you your competitive advantage in the market place?

I don't have one yet.

Some day I'll be able to pay for a large advertising budget. Not very many of the agents I know spend a lot on advertising so this should give me an advantage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snowman

As a sales professional, what gives you your competitive advantage in the market place?

Keeping my competitive advantage a secret, LOL

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jorel

Keeping my competitive advantage a secret, LOL

Not exactly in the spirit of forums, really more in keeping with a scarcity mentality but your choice.

For me I think I get my competitive advantage from the fact that I’ve built a good reputation for exceeding expectation when it comes to delivering results and improvements. With this being the case my clients expectations are high and as such I must put there agenda ahead of mine. By putting them first they find it difficult to object to my proposals and we just keep on doing more and more business.

So in a nutshell I always;

Put my customers first
Gain the trust of my customers
Encourage my customers to have high expectations
Always try to exceed expectations

Happy Selling,

Snowman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snowman

Not exactly in the spirit of forums, really more in keeping with a scarcity mentality but your choice.

For me I think I get my competitive advantage from the fact that I’ve built a good reputation for exceeding expectation when it comes to delivering results and improvements. With this being the case my clients expectations are high and as such I must put there agenda ahead of mine. By putting them first they find it difficult to object to my proposals and we just keep on doing more and more business.

So in a nutshell I always;

Put my customers first
Gain the trust of my customers
Encourage my customers to have high expectations
Always try to exceed expectations

Happy Selling,

Snowman

Thank You for respecting my choice. However if you read enough of my post I do not think it would be hard to figure out my competitive advantage. I just don't believe since I have spent so much time and money developing it that I should just give it away. Much like most car sales companies do not disclose what they paid for a vehicle. But if someone does enough research he can get this information through a number of services.

Not to be arguementative, but how does putting customers, gain the trust of customers, encourage customers to have high expectations and always try to exceed expectation provide a competitive advantage? I mean if you ask a lot of sales people if they do those things they will say yes they do them also. This reminds me of something I read about the two most powerful words in writing sales letter, they are not free or discount, but yeah right. Does your letter pass the yeah right test, do people believe you? Is it something that they have heard before only to be left not feeling that those words ment different things to the person saying them than the person they where said to?

Of course you’re right. However, SAYING you do those things and actually DOING them are two different things. A lot of sales people will say a lot of things that sound good but a much smaller percentage will actually walk the talk.

The question was “what GIVES you your professional advantage in the market place”?

Not what do you SAY gives you your advantage, talk is cheep.

Action speaks louder than words; it’s my action and commitment to these things that works for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snowman

Of course you’re right. However, SAYING you do those things and actually DOING them are two different things. A lot of sales people will say a lot of things that sound good but a much smaller percentage will actually walk the talk.

The question was “what GIVES you your professional advantage in the market place”?

Not what do you SAY gives you your advantage, talk is cheep.

Action speaks louder than words; it’s my action and commitment to these things that works for me.

So how do you prove to your customers that what you say is actually what you do? Especially if others have said the same before you and failed? How do you past the test "yeah right" I've heard that before?

For me I can say I listen to my customers, as I am listening I am taking notes, so I make sure I have all the important information written down and reference it in the future if I need to. Because I write what my customers are saying and ask questions to understand my customers way of thinking they do not say "yeah right" when I say I listen.

Also do this little exercise. Set down your pen in front of you.

Now try and pick up the pen.

I did not say pick up the pen, I said try!

How many americans try and lose weight? What percentage lose weight?
How many americans try to get rich? What percentage get rich?

The word try means to attempt, not to do? Just something I have learned. You can try to learn from it or not, the choice is yours

I think i miss the point with the word TRY?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snowman

Of course you’re right. However, SAYING you do those things and actually DOING them are two different things. A lot of sales people will say a lot of things that sound good but a much smaller percentage will actually walk the talk.

The question was “what GIVES you your professional advantage in the market place”?

Not what do you SAY gives you your advantage, talk is cheep.

Action speaks louder than words; it’s my action and commitment to these things that works for me.

I agree with you Snowman, you have put my answer to your original question in a nutshell.

Actions speak louder then words. At an interview people can promise you the world, few back it up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snowman

As a sales professional, what gives you your competitive advantage in the market place?

Tony,
You have a very good webaddress - What exactly do you do?
John

Competitive Advantage

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