In our last Tip, "Sources of Value", we shared 9 distinct sources that help you to create customer value. It included, but went well beyond, our solutions and capabilities. The last item in the Tip was perhaps the most important. It was "you" (as a business development professional) and the process you use to sell and manage customer relationships.


What if your single biggest source of value (and as a result, your greatest competitive advantage), was you?


Think about the things you do that could differentiate you and your company/offerings from the competition:


Develop relationships with customer contacts who win as a result of supporting and working with you
Work proactively with people at all levels in the customer organization, refusing to get trapped at any level
Understand your customer's business better than anyone else (or at least any other supplier)
Provide the customer with insight to their business and predictive knowledge about their industry
Position solutions and initiatives that could create compelling business outcomes based on your knowledge
Periodically review your relationship with the customer, highlighting the value you are creating together and proposing opportunities to take that value further


These things are not dependent on your solutions or your price (in fact few, if any, of the people reading this can win because they have a clearly superior solution or are in an extremely advantageous cost/price position). The items above are completely dependent on you and the way you work.

There are many sources of value to leverage in our sales/account management roles. In the end, it is you - your curiosity, resourcefulness, integrity and courage - that's your most compelling source of value.



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