Have you ever thought about how difficult the decision-​making process is for your clients? Yes, your product or service could solve their present need to a T at a good price, but a handful of other companies also meet those qualifications. So, what makes you stand out as the obvious choice for your prospects? Matt Singer, writing for SellingPower says, “When there’s not a clear differentiator, sellers need to take on the role of the differentiator and take advantage of their most powerful asset — themselves.”

What should you do when you and your competition are offering practically the same product or service and the only clear differentiator is price? Consider these other ways to differentiate yourself: 

• Be open and easy to interact with
• Humanize the sales process

If your sales pitch is a monologue that never strays from how amazing your product or service is, you’re not coming off as someone clients can easily come to with future concerns. Make the pitch a conversation. Ask open-​ended questions that will get the prospect involved and give them the opportunity to pick your brain about your offerings. Your in-​depth answers to their questions will show that your knowledge of your product or service extends beyond what is needed to sell it. Your knowledge can prove your reliability and become the clear differentiator between you and your competition. 

Drive home how refreshingly different interacting with you regularly will be by humanizing your sales process. To generate a clear differentiator between you and your competition, Singer encourages salespeople to think about the traits that helped them earn their sales jobs in the first place: knowledge, personality and relationships. Understand your product and how it applies to the prospect’s situation and share your knowledge in an engaging conversation. Let your personality shine through during your pitch. A friendly and genuine salesperson who is clearly being themselves and having fun with a sale will stick out more than a salesperson who is putting on a persona of forced sales-​driven professionalism. And third, develop a relationship with your prospects. Don’t be afraid to take small detours in your sales conversation to talk about potential commonalities between the two of you. “Allowing buyers to experience the human behind the seller is a core differentiator in today’s world of marketing automation and personalization that’s far from personal.”