Sales Skills Can't Save an Undifferentiated Offer

Brian McDonald of On Purpose Growth helps consultants take the suck out of sales, and he invited me onto his LinkedIn Live to talk about where that work really starts. In about 15 minutes, you'll hear why great salespeople still struggle, the two warning signs that your offer is the real problem, and one thing to start doing right after you hit stop.

Highlights From the Conversation

Buyers Pick the Option That's Different and Better

Think about how you buy almost anything, from a pack of gum to a house. You decide you have a need. You ask friends or search online, and you end up with three, four, or five options. Then you compare them and pick the one you believe is best for you.

In almost every case, that choice comes down to at least one thing that makes your pick different from the others in a way that makes it better. Your offer is what buyers are evaluating at the end of that process, which is why it sits at the foundation of consistent, scalable growth.

Your Offer Covers the Whole Buyer Journey

Brian asked a question I hear a lot: what's the difference between an offer and what you do? I answered it two ways.

First, you make offers all along the buyer's journey. The "free consultation" button on your website is an offer (and usually a boring one that matches everybody else's). The second call you propose at the end of a discovery call is an offer too. I look at the entire journey and every offer a buyer meets along the way.

Second, people buy outcomes. Nobody buys SEO. They buy the result, which is ultimately more money. Brian said the same thing about his own work: nobody buys coaching sessions from him. A visit to the doctor works the same way. You start with the symptoms, you agree on the outcome you want, and then the doctor explains the surgery that gets you there. The surgery is how the doctor gets you to the outcome, and a shoulder that feels better is what you're paying for.

Back when I sold SEO, prospects would ask how many blog posts we'd write and how many links we'd build. I'd steer the conversation back to the outcome they wanted. More than once, a prospect told me nobody else had asked about their business that way. Your sales approach can be differentiated too.

The Reaction That Tells You It's Working

The ultimate test of offer design is more leads and more sales. There's an earlier signal, though. When you describe what you do on a sales call or at a networking event, people say something like, "Huh, I've never heard anybody talk about it like that before." And they mean it. They want to know more.

The other reaction is a polite "Yeah, okay, that's nice. Good luck to you." If that's what you hear, buyers are probably lumping you in with everybody else.

Built In Beats Bolted On

Sounding different starts with being different. When people hear I'm an offer designer, they often ask if I mean branding and positioning. Here's how I answer.

Say you have a two-bedroom house and your family is growing, so you need four bedrooms. You can't get there by painting the outside. Painting is branding and messaging. Structural differentiation means you build the other two rooms first, and then you go outside and paint. That's why I say built in beats bolted on.

I love branding and messaging, and they can improve results. A creative description of an average offer is still an average offer, though, and a freshly painted two-bedroom house still has two bedrooms. Brian told us his wife wants a new house, and his compromise was to paint the old one. It'll feel new for a while. Three years later, it's the same house.

Brian also suggested a test you can run today. Pull up your website, then pull up five competitors' websites. Ask whether yours says something completely different or says the same thing in a different way. In his experience, it's the same thing in a different way almost every time.

Most of what companies list as differences is table stakes. Five hundred combined years of experience, industry awards, and great customer service are all worth mentioning. Saying you have great customer service is like a restaurant saying it has good food. Buyers already assume it.

The Offer Design Structure in Two Minutes

Every buyer starts at State A, where they don't have what they want or need. State B is where they want to be, with the problem solved. Your service is the vehicle that gets them from A to B, along what I call the transformation pathway.

Every market has a Market Crux somewhere on that pathway. It's a false belief or assumption about the best way to get to State B, and there are four kinds. Once you find the crux, you pair it with a Differentiation Device, which is the mechanism you use to solve the crux in a way nobody else does.

Here's a real example from my own business. The Market Crux in my market is the belief that a growth problem must be a marketing problem, so the answer is more or better marketing. My Differentiation Device is offer design through the Market Crux Method. I fix what makes marketing work.

You Can't Out-Sell an Undifferentiated Offer

Brian and his partner Jeff have a saying: you can't outscale a bad system. Doing more of something that isn't working will eventually produce some sales, and the energy it takes to get them is enormous. I wrote more about that in Why More Marketing Won't Fix an Undifferentiated Offer.

A structurally differentiated offer makes everything downstream easier. Whether you go to market through LinkedIn, ads, networking, or a blimp over the Super Bowl, people notice an offer they haven't seen before, and they click. Sales gets easier too.

There's an old saying I like: good jockeys do well on good horses and struggle on broken-down nags. I'm a good salesperson. If you hand me an undifferentiated offer that looks like everybody else's, I'll struggle with it. Sales skills can't overcome an offer that's inferior to the competition or the same as it.

Brian shared a client story that makes the point. A company sold 90% of its work to the construction industry, and that industry treated them like a commodity. The other 10% went to a different industry that valued how they operated. Brian's team focused the company on that 10%, and it grew to roughly 70% of the business. They made more money in less time, and their larger competitors were too slow to copy the move.

Context Changes the Value

Differentiation needs contrast, so context matters. I'm a big golfer, and golfers use alignment sticks at the driving range. A golf store sells them for $20 or $30. The same sticks sit at Home Depot for about $3 as yard markers.

Brian topped that with a friend who does contract manufacturing in the beauty industry. His friend makes one shampoo for two brands at $3 a bottle. One brand sells it for $72, and the other sells it for $7. Sometimes structural differentiation comes from a new pricing strategy, a new location, or a new context, before you change anything about the service itself.

Two Warning Signs Your Offer Is the Problem

Brian asked how to tell whether an offer is causing price pressure, stalled deals, or the wrong clients. Two signs stand out.

The first is constant discount requests. When a prospect says, "We're talking to three or four other firms, so what can you do for us?" you haven't changed the frame. They see you as one of several similar options, so price is the only thing left to compare.

The second is a flat reaction. Listen for genuine interest and engagement. "Yeah, okay, that's nice" usually means they've lumped you in with everybody else, or they just aren't moved by what you're describing.

If you hear either one, you have an offer problem. A new website, a social media agency, or a rebrand puts a fresh coat of paint on the house. You might get a small bump, and the offer underneath stays the same.

The inverse happens too. Some clients show up with an offer that really is different, and their problem is explaining it. They get hung up on features and can't connect them to outcomes. That's closer to a messaging problem. Either way, different only wins when it produces a better outcome. As an attorney, I could show up to court in a gorilla suit. That would be different, and it would probably hurt my client.

Do This Right After You Watch

Record every sales call, including discovery calls, pitch calls, and demos. You can't get a buyer to say "you're talking about everything I've been struggling with" until you truly understand the voice of the customer, and call recordings are gold for that. When you hear real buyers compare vendors and complain about your industry, you find Market Cruxes.

The voice of the customer is how buyers describe their problems, needs, and wants in their own words. You'll find it on sales calls, in complaints on review sites, and in forums, user groups, and LinkedIn groups. It's the raw, direct language buyers use, without your expert jargon. A patient tells the doctor, "My head is killing me," and the doctor writes it down in medical terms. Your offer and your marketing should sound like the patient.

If you want the thinking behind this whole conversation, read the Offer-First Growth Manifesto. It's about a 10-minute read. And if you're new here, the six-minute training on the first key element of a structurally differentiated offer is a good place to start.

Frequently Asked Questions

Thanks to Brian McDonald and On Purpose Growth for having me on. If you're a consultant who wants to take the suck out of sales, Brian and his partner Jeff are worth a follow.