Memecast #75: Ace of Diamonds: Banish the Word 'Commodity'

This one is the Ace of Diamonds from the Selling Value card deck.

When companies or people inside companies say we sell a commodity, what that says to me is they don't understand the value of what they offer.

It may absolutely be true that you sell a commodity-like product where we're selling gold coins and your gold coins are exactly the same as your competitor's gold coins. And we could think of that maybe as a commodity, but then that's really not what we're selling.

What we have to sell are all the things that go around the gold coins or go around our commodity-like product. We should be thinking about what are the services? Can we do better delivery? Can we do better payment terms? Can we make our customers trust us more? Can we give them better advice? There are many, many different ways that we might be able to add value to our buyers above and beyond the individual product that we're selling.

I often think that when people are saying the words, we sell a commodity or our product is a commodity, they've actually stopped thinking about how they're better than their competition. They've stopped thinking about what their buyers really care about.

So, in my mind, there really is no such thing as a commodity and all companies should banish the word.

We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This is also an example of how Pricing Table Topics works. Grab a deck of our cards, pull out a random card, read the saying, and then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. This will improve your understanding and more importantly, your ability to communicate these important concepts.

If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected].

Now, go make an impact.

Connect with Mark Stiving:

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