Stand-out Marketing

How to Differentiate Your Organization in a Sea of Sameness

Simon Kelly, Paul Johnston, Stacey Danheiser

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781789664829
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781789664836
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Strategy
• Index: Business

"How do we get customers to choose us over our competitors?"In a crowded market it's imperative to demonstrate that you understand what your customers value and can communicate how you can solve their problem better than the competition.

Stand-out Marketing presents original research which compares the content produced by organizations in a range of sectors which demonstrates that customers are left swimming in a "sea of sameness" by copycat marketing that makes choice difficult.

On the back of this unique and fascinating research, Stand-out Marketing sets out a framework of five competencies for business leaders, marketing and sales professionals to successfully differentiate themselves from competitors. These include seeing the next competitive move, staying in tune with your customers and becoming indispensable to them, activating and evaluating initiatives, as well as building an organizational culture which enables these competencies. Featuring interviews with industry experts, tools and exercises throughout, Stand-out Marketing is an essential resource to help companies stand out, deliver genuine value, and achieve competitive advantage.

11

Using V.A.L.U.E. competencies to stand out from your competitors

In this chapter we will:

• revisit the purpose and aims of this book;
• introduce the golden threads competency that leads to high performance;
• provide a competency framework for achieving stand-out marketing;
• demonstrate how V.A.L.U.E. competency can be used for recruitment, selection and personnel development.

We started this book with a purpose. Our goal was to identify the competency B2B organizations need to stand out from their competition. We found that the competency of outstanding sales and marketing professionals which lead to superior departmental and organizational performance could be categorized into the V.A.L.U.E. competency framework. The personal competency set out in this framework is vital for producing market differentiation and the ability to swim away from the Sea of Sameness. V.A.L.U.E. competency underpins the task of B2B value proposition differentiation and is particularly relevant to:

• directing the behaviours for stand-out results;
• measuring individual sales and marketing performance;
• recruitment, selection and development;
• aligning stand-out marketing competency with generic competency;
• communicating the norms and values of the organization.

V.A.L.U.E. competency is not wishy-washy theory. It is about the demonstrable behaviours that relate to the ability to make good decisions, creatively solve problems, navigate the organization to get things done, interact i...

Table of contents

• List of figures and tables
• About the authors
• Foreword by Professor Malcolm McDonald
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 01 B2B organizations are stuck in a Sea of Sameness
• 02 Why does sameness happen in B2B marketing?
• 03 The V.A.L.U.E. competency framework – core competencies for B2B differentiation
• 04 The role of sales and marketing in B2B organizations – what is important?
• 05 The visionary – competencies for seeing the next competitive move
• 06 The activator – competencies for getting things done
• 07 The learner – competencies for staying in tune with your customers
• 08 Usefulness – competencies for becoming indispensable to your customers
• 09 The evaluator – competencies for making good decisions
• 10 Building a V.A.L.U.E. competency culture
• 11 Using V.A.L.U.E. competencies to stand out from your competitors
• Index