Social Media is forcing business - worldwide business - to get back to the basics.

In business, the Marketing & Sales functions are about testing for value and, where it exists, exchanging value through transactions.

Social Media has blurred the lines around both testing for value and exchanging value through transactions.

That's the nature of new media. When innovations lead to new media, the new media complicates Marketing & Sales. For some business the complication is a boon. For others it is a bane. For example, when the printing press spread across Europe the common man had the opportunity to write as never before...that led to Shakespeare. Then, widespread plagiarism quickly led to patent laws [by Queen Elizabeth I].

Now, 400 years later, social media is creating an even larger communication/media change.

For some people it's a boon: marketing consultants and website designers are a couple of examples.

For some people it's a bane. Perhaps, B2B salespeople have suffered the most? 

B2B salespeople have been (1) distracted then (2) taught how to dilute the relationships that link them to their clients and potential clients. 

Diluting the relationship between B2B salespeople and their clients: that's the blur of social media.

We can and we must remove that blur by getting back to the basics...the basics of salesperson-client relationships.

Those Sales [and Marketing] basics are:

1. testing for value and 
2. exchanging value through transactions

A year ago, I wrote about Competing - Using a Low-Price strategy….the introduction was: 

At our Leaders’ workshops we tie two marketing concepts together. The two marketing concepts are ‘the PQS Triangle’ and ‘Differential Advantage’. Both of these concepts are ‘vintage’ marketing thoughts…..things we learned a few decades ago. 

PQS Triangle is a picture, designed to make it clear businesses can set its marketing strategy based on a combination of Price, Quality, and Service. Rarely, if ever, can a business succeed if its marketing strategy is designed to win at all of P, Q, & S. Put another way – it is virtually impossible to deliver the lowest Price, the highest Quality, and the best Service all at once. Something has to give. For most of our Clients the thing that has to give is Price: most of our Clients are not in a position to offer the lowest Price. 

Differential Advantage answers the question: Why do our Clients buy from us rather than do nothing or buy from one of our competitors? 

When the PQS Triangle and Differential Advantage are combined we have the essence of the marketing strategy. 

For certain businesses the marketing strategy does contain Price – i.e., the business can compete by offering better prices than their competition. 

Now, about Competing – using a Value-based Price strategy: 

Hanan & Karp expressed the concept concisely in ‘Competing on Value’.

"A value-based price has five characteristics:      

1. Price is premium price.
2. Price is compared with the improved profits it contributes to a customer’s business, not to competitive prices.
3. Price is recoverable by the customer’s improved profits and is therefore an investment rather than a cost.
4. Price is not discountable.
5. Price is applications-specific. It varies in direct proportion to each customer’s improved profits."

This, of course, is the exact opposite to competing – using a low-price strategy.

So, the spectrum of pricing strategies goes from low-price at one end to value-based on the other end. 

Where do you position your pricing in that Price-Strategy Spectrum?

Thought Tweet #447 Wild Goose Chases: Stop makin' 'em; Stop takin' 'em.

The Thinking Behind The Tweet

One reason why salespeople fail to make a sale is they never had any chance of making a sale in the first place. David Sandler, the sales educator, said something like that. And, it's true. So, salespeople should do what they can to stop takin' Wild Goose Chases. Similarly, buyers waste their time with dysfunctional buyer-seller interactions. Everyone should stop makin' &  takin' Wild Good Chases.