Stop Blaming Price: Positioning Is Your Problem

You didn't lose that deal on price. You lost it because your positioning wasn't strong enough to make you the obvious, can't-do-without-you choice.

Bill and Bryan dig into a claim that gets argued in every sales meeting: is price really the reason deals slip away, or is it a symptom of weak positioning? They walk through a real audit of lost deals — 22 gone in six months, four of them deals that should have been won — and use it to unpack what separates a vendor from a "we can't do without you" partner.

You'll learn the four ingredients of unshakeable positioning: naming the beliefs your customer has to shift before your value can land, getting explicit about what you don't do, choosing whether you're a problem-solver or a destination (or both), and painting the real cost of standing still. Plus, why the best time to build this is when business is good — not when you're desperate.

It's the 20th anniversary of the show, and Bill and Bryan want to hear from you — send a short voice memo to listener@advancedsellingpodcast.com for their September anniversary celebration.

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Is it time to make a BOLD move in your business? If so, download our brand new book, "12 Bold Moves - Insider Secrets to Reinventing Yourself and Your Business." http://12boldmoves.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Welcome everybody to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast in the history of podcasts, celebrating our own 20th anniversary.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Just the two of us. I'm Brian. Just the two of us celebrating. We had millions of listeners, but turns out two people came to the party, Brian and Bill. That's Bill's uh velvety voice.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

You hear you hear every week. You've heard every week since 2006. And so we're getting our own cake and we're gonna have a party. And we'd love for you to be there. The way you're there is you send us a little voice memo, listener at advanced selling podcast.com. That is a uh three taps on your phone. Uh maybe four. Open up voice memos, hit record, hit stop when you're done. There's a little like send it email, hit that send button, type in advanced selling or listener at advanced selling podcast.com and put ASP anniversary, and we'll uh put you on the air uh in some way, shape, or form, we think, while we're eating our cake.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

So I had a um as a guy, as a dude, I I'm not a and I think you're this way, not a tremendous detail person. I mean, I like details around the studio. I like to make sure the cameras are right. Uh there's some details that I pay attention to, but there's others I really don't. And so we had our floors uh resurfaced, and we took carpet out of one area and put hardwood floors in, and it was a long, month-long fiasco. Um, but in the process, we moved all the furniture out, obviously, and then we just moved it back in. And when we moved it out, Jane took all the my wife took all the pillows from the couch and the love seat and took them upstairs just to so that dust wouldn't get on from this from the sanding and grinding. So today we got everything back, and I said, Where are the pillows last night? She goes, Oh, they're in the bedroom. Oh, okay. So um, she had them stored away in a closet. And so I said, Let's put them on. She goes, Okay, once you bring them down. So I brought them all down, threw them all down the stairs. That was kind of fun. That's awesome. High school. And uh, so now now they're all on the floor, and I'm I'm challenged with where each pillow goes. And each pillow is a shade of beige, white, off-white, uh, there and and literally any one of them could go anywhere, but they're slightly different sizes, and I know there's a place, and she's sitting in the kitchen while I'm kind of sizing things up. She's looking at me kind of with a snicker, like, you don't know where those go, do you? You've lived here for like well, this couch. You know, I started getting this couch is new. It's only we've only had this couch for a year, and she goes, You you do not know where those pillows go. No, no, no. I mean, there's there's two that match the the chair. I got those, man. Check and check. But uh, and finally it was one of those, just forget it, I'll do it.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Thank God. I don't need another sudoku puzzle with pillows. We have the same the exact same thing, but a little asterisk on our bed. So our bed, we have these pillows, and you put them on. I can kind of figure out based on size, the order, yeah. So I mostly have that done, but here's the best part. So you know, house gets done, bed gets made. You know, we don't make our bed, put all pills on every day. So I'm taking the pillows off and I'm just like tossing them over off to the side. She's like, What do you do? I'm like, Well, taking the pillows off, and so we can get in bed. Well, they need to be stacked. I'm like, Well, wait, wait, what? So the pillows not only have an organization on the bed, but sleeping. There's an organization off the bed where they go in this separate place in an order up. Uh, so I didn't know I was didn't know that mattered in my own bedroom. What the the one place where nobody else goes except me? Exactly. But it matters to stuff. And the order was like, You fool, don't you know? There's it was kind of yeah, it was kind of like, Well, what are you doing? I'm like, What about taking the pillows off so we can go to bed?

SPEAKER_00 3:50

So well, it's now I know it's kind of like I've got a thing with the hose. We've got a we've got one of those uh flexible hoses, or we've got a bucket that the hose goes in. And people around me put the when they're done with the hose, they put the hose in first and then they reel everything in. So the hose end is at the bottom of the bucket. I don't like that. I want the hose to be gently over the edge, yes, so I can pull it and just yes. So I guess certain things I am a detailed must be genetic. I don't know. Yeah, okay. Before we started, I said I was going to uh share a topic that I'd like for you to uh give voice to and riff on a little bit, and you haven't heard this. So um here is the statement you're not losing deals because you're because your price is too high, you're losing deals because your positioning is too weak. Now that's a statement that I believe. You may not believe that, although I suspect you do, because I want to get out of the price, price only. Well, we need a little 10%, we got a discount, they don't have in the budget and all that bull. Um so when I say that, what where does your mind go?

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Uh two different places. The first place is I am seeing this is my observation, less and less uh price stuff just in general. Um, there are still some for sure, um, but it's less than it used to be. Where there was there used to be like it's only price, like real strong. Yeah, and I don't know if it's generational or market driven or what, there's less of that. Um, and then on the second part of the statement, can you read that second part? The value part, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Um, you don't lose deals because you lose them because your positioning is weak.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Yes, that part I wholeheartedly agree with. Um, and one of the reasons I believe that that is a true statement is because I don't think people um spend any time, any time working on that part of like none. They they learn how to ask questions and propose. That's really it. It's like a checklist. And the proposal isn't the value statement stuff, the proposal is the you know, the mechanical proposal. Yeah, here's the thing is here's how much cost on that other jazz. Um, I think people really struggle. And this isn't this is an exercise, and I'm giving the advice part. You don't just like do this once, you never stop doing it. No, you never stop working. We have done, I'm really proud of our team here, BZ. We have worked our tails off for five years almost on this subject. And we have gone, I can't, we've gone places you talk about not linear, where we started to where we are now is nowhere in the same boat, not even close. And I'm really happy about that because it tells me our team is continuing to to find our way where that that statement and that translation of uh of uh messaging and value come together, and it's been a fun, it's a fun exercise, you know.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

That's great, yeah. It's great. And you you're so right. You don't do it once, you don't do it in you know, before a presentation, and then the next presentation you don't do it. I mean, it it's just it's ongoing and it's got to be documented, it's got to be part of the ethos of the company.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Uh this this is how we do things. This these are the problems we solve. These this is how we want our customers to see us. That's one of the best positioning questions is well, how do you want your customer to see you when you get through with this thing, or you how do you want them to see you? Uh, nice, jovial, okay, maybe, but what about uh no option? I can't do without it. Exactly. Wouldn't that be nice if we could position ourselves that way?

SPEAKER_02 7:48

I I was just thinking, I woke up early this morning, like early, early, like four, my head's spinning. We did this like deep dive in the first half of the year where we uh looked at our lost closed loss deals, deals we lost. We lost 22 deals between Jan and June. We were like kind of going through each of them. There were some really good, we did a really good job of losing early where we should have lost. There are four deals out of 22 we should have won. And I this I had this vision this morning. I'm like, you know what I should do? I should get all four of those CEOs together because we talked to the presidents of each of those companies. They're like, look, you two out of 22 deals we lost, you four are the only ones I'm talking to. And we missed because we should have gotten you, you know. And and what came to mind was this is back to them. I feel like in their sales life, they are gaining weight slowly, about a pound and a half per year, almost unnoticeably. And when they get another year and a half without using our tools and stuff, they are gonna be in trouble. Yeah, it's like that. It's like dang. I mean, I just that just hit me this morning. But that's what that is. That's like seeing, well, I can't not do that. It's kind of like if you have a I mean, you've had you've been open about your health stuff, or you know, the doctor comes to you and says, dude, if you don't change something, there's the outcome. Like, whoa, okay. Um, that's the I can't live without you now. Versus like, yeah, it'd be you know, be nice if you you know worked out every once in a while.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

But you're fine. Yeah, so so let's talk about the ingredients of I can't do without you. Because because we talked about this here a few weeks ago. We talked about being the obvious choice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How how do you become the obvious choice? And this is a similar, similar approach, but I don't think you can ever get enough of this. So if it's repetitive for you, uh tough, it maybe, maybe it should be. Or good. Um, but I think that the first thing you have to start with is what are some beliefs that your customer needs to change or adopt in order for them to get the most value out of you? So you bring value, we all bring value, but if their beliefs are old beliefs that don't let your value in, then it's not going to be a deal. You're gonna be mispositioned, they're gonna see you as just an average, you know, just nothing special there. But if you can get clear about what are the three to five beliefs that you need to that the customer needs to shift in order for you to do your best work, that's that's a good way to start that positioning conversation, at least internally. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

And it makes you the only way you can do that is you need to document them. That's so that's a great exercise on its own. Say, do we really believe what we're saying here? That's a good um, I have an element of that in the ingredients category that I think a lot of people miss. And sometimes this ingredient is the easiest one to find, and that is what value you don't bring is to say to someone, look, we're because we're in the mode now, like we're like we are not in the training business anymore. We were for a long, long time, and we're just not. We're now in the certification of tools and it's mechanical. There's no role playing, we don't teach people what to say anymore, and really good coaches and trainers do. We don't. If you have really good trainers, we just talked to a really big potential client and they are got a corporate deal with Sandler. I'm like, great, keep it. Our stuff will make Sandler work better, I promise. So that's really helped us say, and we're not that, or we're not, we don't we don't do custom deals anymore. You customize it, we don't do custom. I did it for 20 years, I customized everything and I loved it, but we don't do that. So saying what you don't bring value to sometimes is helpful for both of you. Um, and it can be really strong.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

So yeah, that's good. That's excellent. That's good. So another thing you you might think about as you seek to just consider your position is are you positioned as a problem solver, somebody who helps people solve a problem, or a uh a destination person, a transformative. Uh so you want them to get to a new place. You want them to, and it could be both. You could also, you can not only be solving problems, but also the destination could become very clear. If you can position yourself as a vehicle to move from problem to destination, uh you will you will position yourself in a way that probably nobody else in your in your market will, because everybody else is worried about features and benefits, and here's how it works, and here's the modules and all that crap. What you're working on is here's where you're at right now, here's where you want to go. I got a roadmap. The roadmap positioning is a really good place to be.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Yes. And usually there's been some it some openness to some issue that's there. You wouldn't be talking in the first place. That's right. And it's about extrapolating that out, if that's the right way to say that, and saying if you don't change anything, here's what this thing's gonna look like in 18 months. And I'm still, and everyone's and I'm loving it. We've been riding a high on the market for a long, long, long, long time. Everyone's waiting for it to come crashing down. Cycles will tell you at some point it will. And I still, we just had a deal where they said no, and I'm like, and they just like we we're good, you know. They've had like plenty of capacity, they got a capacity issue. They're you know, yeah, so they haven't been selling. There's they've got atrophy for two and a half years because like they can't get product because they're at manufacturing. And I'm like, that's not gonna be here forever, and now's the time to muscle up because you don't need to. You just try to start muscling up when you need to. No way, great man.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

No way, that's a great man. That's a great lesson, right? We could do a whole episode on that one. It's just when is a good time to start working on yourself? And it's easy to say, well, all the time, and that's probably true, but the the bad times are hard to work on yourself because you're desperate then, very and and you're defensive. And well, yeah, Brian, we could do that in good times, but we can't do it now. We need this business. I mean, we can't go and detach now, and it's like, oh uh, so good times are a good time to work on you, they are.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Well it's like the cold war of sales, if I may take it to history, you know what I mean? Cold war was essentially there so that nobody shot anybody, you know. But we we're both ready, weren't we? Right? We're both ready to launch. And um, that's what that's what getting ready now is. And there's never a good time. There's I that drives me nuts when people well bad. And it's there's some reasonable things that would say, well, it's a bad time, but man, a lot of times it's not.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Yeah, and and there's nothing there's I don't know, you've had a lot of clients both training and operational, and I have too over the years. There's never there has never been a client that has come to me that can't use some help somewhere, right? And sometimes that some help somewhere can yield massive gains. Yes, yes, yes. It can be the difference between a 200 grand a year and a 500 grand a year just by making a slight tweak. I mean, how many times have you seen that? So and yet, and yet sometimes people are like, no, I'm good, I'm good. You know, I I did training seven years ago. I did a little Sandler training or I did a little uh little one-day thing. I'm good. And I always think there's a thousand things that you do, and if I can just help you with one or two of those things, and it's your call. I don't, I don't care. Yeah, you know, but but it doesn't take much. No, stop thinking about overhauls. Yeah, stop thinking about well, they're gonna they're gonna overhaul my entire no, sometimes it's just what are you paying attention to?

SPEAKER_02 15:11

We need to keep this one going. That's a good topic.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Maybe we'll do a part two if we can remember it.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

We will not, but yeah, we'll try. We'll we'll do our best. So all right, man.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Good job. If you have not joined the insider program yet, I don't know where we are when in terms of release dates. So if you have not joined for August, August 7th is our excuse me, is our date. We're gonna be talking about media. What kind of media can you put out there to make the phone ring to generate opportunities and discussions and prospects? So we're gonna go in detail deep into that. And uh, when you join, you will get the prior six months worth of uh content. And we've had great uh content like how do you sell a premium product in a commodity market? We've done a lot of work on that too. So make sure you join advanced selling podcast.com slash insider. That's all done. Bye.