⚔️ Fighting Commoditization
🔴 Make It Easy
🎯 Pick Your Priorities
⚔️ Fighting Commoditization
As costs rise, customers look for relief. They re-evaluate contracts, delay purchase decisions, and even reduce value-based programs.
For example, companies are split on sustainability. PwC’s 2026 State of Decarbonization report found that 18% of companies reduced their climate commitments, while 23% increased them.
Sustainability investments are being scrutinized. Comparatively, in 2024 the split was 37% increase to 16% reduction. This has real implications. If you bundle sustainability as a core differentiator, its value is eroded by rising costs.
Sustainability is only one example. Companies are scouring every expense and prioritizing lowest-cost procurement.
It’s a race to the bottom. Unfortunately, the bottom has a basement. What made your products and services unique is being stripped away to compete on the basics: get the minimum job done for the lowest price.
How do you fight commoditization and avoid competing on price? The answer is you don’t. You actually unbundle your services to lead with greater transparency.
Instead of bundling value-adds as a differentiator, present them as features. Let customers select the features they want.
This empowers you to validate market demand, prioritize the features your customers want and need, while helping your customers manage their costs.
Face commoditization directly by selling price and value transparently. Approach your customers with a CFO-to-CFO lens. Talk about the numbers, give them options, and help them make better purchasing decisions.
🔴 Make It Easy
One of the most effective ways to differentiate your business is to make it easy for your customers.
It’s like Staples’ Easy Button. How do you make it insanely easy to buy and implement your products and services?
Velocity is a powerful measure to reduce friction. Track the time it takes a customer to move through each phase of your sales funnel, from inquiry to close.
You can start with simple metrics:
- How long does it take to respond to a lead?
- How long does it take for a customer to receive pricing?
- How long does it take to move a customer from inquiry to close?
As you measure each step, look for places customers slow down, get stuck, or drop off. These are your friction points. The question then becomes how to streamline and eliminate them.
Every time you eliminate a friction point, you make it easier for customers to evaluate, buy, and implement your services.
📊 One Stat to Watch
$1,565
the average cost for long-haul truckers to fuel up in September in the United States, up from $930 in February for 250 gallons of diesel.
🎯 Pick Your Priorities
You can’t solve every issue at once. It’s the old adage: Whenever you say yes to something, you’re saying no to something else.
When you look at your business as an entity, where does it need you to focus the most attention:
- Sales: Do you need to generate more revenue?
- Quality or size of customers: Are you selling to the right customers?
- Winning deals: Does your sales team struggle to close deals because customers are getting cold feet?
- Price: Are you being nickel-and-dimed and suffering from death by a thousand discounts?
- Resources: Are you drowning in opportunities and need to use your resources more effectively?
- Competition: Are you facing a competitor that’s beating you up and making it hard to win?
- Something else: There’s a clear threat or problem holding your business back.
Analyze your business and the areas you need to fix. Identify one or two pressing needs, and commit to solving them. You will see results where you put your focus.
🤔 Thoughts on Today’s Issue?
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