Competing on Value --

Surviving and thriving in today’s

competitive market

What’s Your Competitive Edge?

What differentiates your business from the competition? As an independent lubricant marketer,
you face the enormous challenge of competing with some of the largest companies in the world.
And even though the US is the largest lubricants market in the world, the demand for lubricants
is expected to remain relatively flat for the near future.
To compete in this environment, you can compete on price or compete on value. We believe the
choice is a simple one; compete on value! Competing on price is a dangerous game. Once you
begin to compete on price, it is very difficult to stop a continued downward pressure on price
resulting in smaller margins and fewer profits.
Competing on value on the other hand, can enable you to maintain market share, protect your
margins and capture the value of your products, services and relationships. There are three keys
that are essential to your ability to compete on value: target your customers, position your
products and services to meet their needs, and enable your sales people with the skills,
knowledge and tools that they need to effectively communicate your value to your customers and
prospects.

Target Your Customers

Defining and targeting your ideal customer profile is one of the hardest things for any company
to do effectively. Ideal customers are those organizations with needs that your company is well
equipped to meet. They are organizations where you have a natural competitive advantage in the
market due to your products, services, relationships or geography. A common tendency in many
companies is to strive to be all things to all people. If your company has unlimited resources,
then this may be an option. If not, it can be very expensive and time consuming to pursue
prospects that don’t meet your ideal customer profile. The hard part isn’t necessarily defining
the ideal customer profile; the hard part is having the courage to say no, when a prospect doesn’t
meet your ideal customer profile.

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Position Products and Services to Meet Their Needs
One of the many benefits of focusing on an ideal customer profile is that it allows you to position
your products, services and company to meet their specific business needs. Positioning in
concert with their needs is essential to creating value and product differentiation. Different
target customers have different needs and define value based on those needs. To create value,
you need to first understand the buyers’ needs and their buying behaviors and then carefully
develop a specific value proposition and craft clear messages that resonate with their unique
needs and situations.
Many of the oil marketers with whom we speak have done an effective job at this type of
targeting and positioning, and some have even gone the next step of developing formal
marketing communications plans to reach those targeted audiences. Where the difficulty comes
for many is the ability of their sales force to execute on their strategies.

Enable Your Sales People Holly Fitzgerald is the Business

Manager for Lubrizol K2M’s online
Skilled sales professionals are critical to the success of lubricant sales development program.

marketers. If you choose to compete on value, then your sales Lubrizol K2M Online Lubricant Sales
Learning Site offers over 22
people need to be able to effectively differentiate your product in a lubricant sales scenarios and 20
hours of searchable reference
crowded and competitive market place. Effective sales people never materials.
give the impression they are selling. They just seem to know the To learn more about Lubrizol’s
right thing to say and when to say it. Their years of experience, Knowledge2Market contact
k2m@lubrizol.com or visit
customer understanding and germane product knowledge www.lubrizol.com/k2m.

differentiate them from other, less skillful sales professionals. Or try it yourself; take a free skill
assessment and preview portions of
Finding effective sales people can be difficult; developing your the Off-Highway Diesel and
Hydraulic Fluid Compatibility
current staff to unleash their potential also can be a big challenge. courses. Just register as a new user
at www.lubrizolk2m.com. Within 24
Effective development initiatives focus on supporting your business hours, you will receive an email
confirming access to the course
objectives by providing the skills and knowledge needed to preview.
communicate credibly with your target audience, and reinforce your
positioning and competitive differentiation. This is best accomplished with scenario-based
learning.

Scenario-based learning develops sales force skills

more quickly
A scenario-based approach puts learning in the context of a conversation with a customer.
Learning takes place in realistic scenarios that sales people face everyday. This makes the
learning engaging and relevant. Within those scenarios, learners are exposed to the technical
knowledge that is necessary to sell the value of lubricants. The goal of the scenarios isn’t to
teach everything there is to know about lubricants, but instead to provide just the right amount of

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knowledge to be successful in that situation. To augment the learning, include reference
materials that provide additional detailed technical information. The combination of the learning
and reference materials provide the right mix to help your sales people sell on value.

Realizing the Value of Your Products and Services

The quality of your products and services provide a foundation for competing on value. But it is
not enough. To effectively compete on value, target your customers, position your products to
meet their needs and then ensure that your sales people have the skills and knowledge to
effectively communicate value to your customers.

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