One thing’s for sure: Cork Walgreen REALLY knew how to sell.

In one of our previous posts, we talked about how Walgreen’s Drugstores figured out how to sell more stuff and become one of the top-performing stocks in the last forty years in the process, beating Intel, GE and Cisco! Their formula for success was simple: have the best, most convenient drugstores, with a high profit per customer visit. A simple formula, no doubt and that‘s the formula for creating the single most successful company in terms of market return in the past forty years.

What  Walgreens did is what you as a sales manager must do as well. If you are to fully distinguish yourself from the competition just like Cork Walgreen, then you’ll need to think about what you can be the best in the world at – and then funnel all your energies into pursuing that one thing. Figure out what one thing you do better than anyone else and teach that one thing to your salespeople over and over and over again.

The “figuring out” is the part is the hardest and most challenging part.

So here’s how you do it. Ask yourself:

1. What list of things does my product or service do better than the competition?
2. Out of all those things, is there one feature in particular that just “beats the pant off” your competitor?
3. How much incrementally better is that particular feature of my product or service than the competition?
4. If so, what specific subset of customer would be most interested in that feature?
5. What benefit does it offer to that subset of customers?
6. Is the true benefit given from the feature so simple that it can be clearly articulated by even your worst sales rep?
7. If you focus all my energy on that one particular sub-market of prospects, will it be numerous and profitable enough for me and my team to achieve the sales objectives and goals we have set for ourselves?

Find out what you and your product or service can be “the best in the world at” and then align your salespeople behind that singular message. If you can get all seven differentiators working in your favor, then you have a winner.

We’ll discuss even more ways to get your salespeople to sell more effectively in our next post with the “CRM 3.2″ model. So stay tuned.

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Post a comment below and tell me how you get your sales reps to sell more effectively