Are you selling a commodity?

Many manufacturing businesses constantly find themselves talking about their pricing rather than the value their solution is adding to their customers. The reason why pretty much all their conversations with their customers became about price is because their products have very few or no factors that DIFFERENTIATE them from their competitors.

Essentially, their customers perceived little or no VALUE differences between them and other similar suppliers.

This lack of distinguishing features elevates the importance of PRICE. So much so, that price becomes the most important, and sometimes the only factor, that influences their customers’ PURCHASING decisions. Competing on price can lead to price wars, it’s the start of a downward spiral that you don’t want to be part of.

If you are experiencing low MARGINS, low sales VOLUME and low REVENUE, then there is light at the end of the tunnel.

You can take ACTION to change this:

• Rethink your customers’ problems and get a better understanding of their pain points

• Determine what you can do to make your product / service different in ways that adds value to your customers

• Think beyond features and benefits, quantify the value your solution is adding to your customers – be it increasing their sales, saving them costs, reducing risk

• Continuously innovate – competitors are always ready to copy

 There are so many other actions that can be added to this list.

The question really is - what are you doing to differentiate your products and services?