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“A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.” – Henry Ford

Selling a product is a far different prospect than selling a service. Generally, buyers will know the fundamentals of what your product is, how it works and maybe even why they need it.

Services on the other hand can be a far more nebulous value proposition to try and define for a prospective customer. You can’t hold it in your hand, and understanding how to differentiate the value of one service over another can ultimately come down to preconceptions and hinge upon 3rd party references.

To win in today’s competitive marketplace, service companies must begin to think differently about how they go to market, position their service offering and solve for their customers’ challenges.

“Most companies utilize the same resources to train both service sales and product sales personnel,” says Siderowicz. “The information presented is typically generic in nature, falling short of what’s needed. People selling products are trained to sell features, functions and benefits. Service sales people need to be trained to sell value and master abstract selling concepts.”

Sales veteran Eric Hicks adds BuildingReports can be a real differentiator for fire and life safety service companies, but it’s critical to focus on solving for their challenges – not a list of benefits and menu of services provided.

“To be effective, our members must embrace how technology solves problems, ” says Hicks. “At the end of the day, corporate audit compliance and liability are what keeps facility management up at night. Our most successful BuildingReports service members know how to communicate and demonstrate that they understand and can solve for these challenges.”

About AfterMarket Consulting: The AfterMarket Consulting Group was founded by Joe Siderowicz in 2002. Joe has spent over twenty-five years in the service industry. During his career Joe has been responsible for identifying and building market leading, highly profitable service organizations for companies large and small. www.aftermarketconsulting.com