McCleave: Sell Advantage, Not Just Products

John Wolz

Consultant Bill McCleave Jr. advised distributors to ask themselves: �Am I selling products to customers or am I selling advantage?�
In a seminar on �Moving from Vendor to Critical Supplier,� McCleave said key suppliers are those who are �indispensable in tipping the balance toward success for the customer.�
�Different is not necessarily better, but better is necessarily different,� McCleave asserted. �If you are better, you are different.�
�Differentiation in the distribution industry will be all about delivering value to customers in unique ways,� McCleave said. �Success will be based on understanding customer requirements and on designing a product and service mix along with associated processes which consistently meet those requirements.�

McCleave�s Key Differentiators of Critical Suppliers:
� Critical suppliers have a �big idea� for positioning their companies to provide unique value to selected customers.
� Deliver a well-developed and consistent message focused on what the customer really wants.
� Choose critical activities to meet customer/supplier expectations and set improvement goals.
� Effective system for validating value contribution to customers.

�Do we play the same game as our competitors � but we play better? Or do we play a different game than competitors?�
Not understanding what your customer needs is like a mechanic responding to a car owner, �I can�t fix this car, but I bet I can get the horn to blow.�
The company message must be made clear to all messengers. �If they don�t have it they will make up their own message,� McCleave warned.
�Without the right people, high performance teams will not exist and market potential, product line growth, and exceptional profitability will never be realized,� McCleave advised.
Distributors must let customers know the value they add, McCleave Performance documentation means providing the customer a report card with such factors at percentage of ontime shipments, percentage of complete shipments, problem resultions, status of current problems, percentage of returned goods and other information as required.
Show the customer cost savings, improved productivity or asset performance and revenue growth. �Document it,� McCleave said. �Show that you delivered value to the customer.�\�2003 FastenerNews.com