MODERN SELLING
than five decades, we provide
personalised service to each and
every one of our customers. You
can contact us at any time, over
the phone or online to make a
claim or enquire about our range
of insurance products. We offer
car, home, life, business and travel
insurance, as well as specialised
boat and pet insurance.
forced to trade on credentials
and experience – things that our
business has already built or done
– which will deliver diminishing
returns over time.
Credentials or obituary?
Reading the credentials of some
businesses is like reading an
obituary for a person who has
already died.
Take a look at yours and see if
you can spot what I mean. Are you
talking a lot about the great things
you did a long time ago? Does it
sound like you work in a vibrant,
growing business? Or one that’s in
a holding pattern or slow decline?
Customers want to buy who you
could be tomorrow and, and if it’s
going to be a long relationship,
in three or five years’ time. They
are interested in what’s coming
next – what you’re working on,
investigating, tinkering with, and
investing in.
Stop swimming in the sea of
same
When comparing your marketing
and credentials material of
organisations operating in some
services industries, you could be
forgiven for concluding that they
were actually the same business,
just trading under different names.
Consider the following
(fictionalised) examples from the
mortgage broking and insurance
industries.
Mortgage broker
ABC Mortgage Brokers offers
you decades of trusted financial
connections and experience. We
partner with some of the leading
banks, building societies and
credit unions in Australia and take
a personalised approach to your
individual needs. You get expert
advice and guidance to find a
competitive mortgage and home
loan rate suited to your individual
situation. Best of all, our service is
completely free.
Insurance business
We are one of Australia’s largest
insurance companies with
operations in every State and
Territory. In business for more
Do any of these descriptions
sound like your business? Do they
look familiar in terms of the way
you’re accustomed to talking about
yourself? And could they equally
describe most of your competitors?
Industries develop a kind of
“common language” that helps
professionals in the industry
communicate with one another.
This is useful to a point, until it
becomes a common marketing
language as well.
The more that customers
experience this common marketing
language, the less differentiation
they see – and the more likely they
are to commoditise us.
The problem with unique
selling propositions
For a long time, the world of
marketing was very taken with the
idea of unique selling propositions.
The idea was to find the thing
that’s unique about you, compared
to other people in your market, and
position yourself on that.
This sounds like a reasonable idea,
but it’s wrong on four levels:
1. It encourages us to look
externally for validation, by
October 2016
ModernBusiness
23