SIMPLE Framework – Positioning: What is Your Positioning Strategy to Move Your Deals Forward

We have earlier discussed the first 3 steps in the SIMPLE framework for selling – Surprise, Inspire & Motivate. If done well, this will bring your customer/prospect to a situation where they identify with a vision that you have painted for them and are motivated enough to take action to move towards the vision.

Once the customer is motivated to do something about the challenge that you have helped surface, you need to then position yourself or your product/service, such, that the customer feels confident that you will be able to help him resolve the challenge.

This is the 4^th step in the SIMPLE framework.

There are 3 positioning strategy that you have in this case:

You position YOURSELF and YOUR expertise.

You should ideally do this when your product is either a commodity or is not known to be a leader in the category in the market. So, you position yourself and your expertise as the key differentiator from other possible options that the customer has. This positioning can work well, as long as we have done the previous three steps well. Through those steps, you have already created a certain amount of trust in your customer by proving that you not only understand their business, but understand it so well that you have been able to surprise them about their own business.

You position your PRODUCT or SERVICE.

You take this positioning strategy, when your product or service is already a market leader in the category and is known in the market to solve the challenges that you have already identified. This can also work if you have a lot of customer testimonials about how your product or service solved a similar challenge for them. This is also one of the reasons why we should always collect testimonials.

You position your USP (Price / Velocity / Support)

If you think that the solution that you have for the customer is a commodity and your expertise doesn’t necessarily count because of this, then you position yourself as the lowest cost provider or the provider who can do this the fastest or as a provider who has excellent support system, based on your organization’s strength.

Ideally, if you are able to use 2 of these strategies in combination and in the order that I have mentioned, it would be really difficult for your competition to take the deal away from you.

Your Turn to get Involved

How do you position your product, service, expertise currently? Please share your tactics and we shall continue the conversation.