A common technique when challenged with lower quote. If OP humors us with the actual context, then it might get more interesting.
This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales
41–50 of 76 posts
Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales
#42If I got an e-mail like this, I'd most likely go with the competitor. > The FooCorps's of the world have spent a couple decades now in a the race to the bottom and it shows. I have no doubt you can get their product (or a whole raft of others) for a few bucks cheaper than us. AKA. "Our competition suck and it shows." > Our product, Acme, is different. Of course. > Look, FooCorp's customers are switching to Acme in dr…
> AKA. "Our competition suck and it shows."
While it might seem ingracious for a competing company to explicitly state this, it doesn't mean it isn't true, or even obvious. And if it is the case, it's definitely something you want to both know and base your decision on.
Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales
#43Maybe this is due to lack of context, but with all that "designed to improve your company performance in the critical area" and "investing heavily in great customer service and innovation" that email sounds terribly enterpriesey to me. It all could be boiled down to a one-liner in spirit of "Sorry, but we can't offer our services any cheaper. Our prices are indeed higher, but the services are better than competitors and we actually provide more value per price unit. Please, take this into consideration."
And maybe that's just my tastes, but negative commenting on competitors with all that "race to the bottom" and "customers are switching in droves" stuff doesn't sound any good to me. Even if competitor is really a complete shit.
Just my opinion. I'm not a businessman.
Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales
#44If I got an e-mail like this, I'd most likely go with the competitor. > The FooCorps's of the world have spent a couple decades now in a the race to the bottom and it shows. I have no doubt you can get their product (or a whole raft of others) for a few bucks cheaper than us. AKA. "Our competition suck and it shows." > Our product, Acme, is different. Of course. > Look, FooCorp's customers are switching to Acme in dr…
It sounds like you don't like that the email is part of the company's marketing. But wouldn't it be crazy if they sent such an email without making it part of their marketing? Also, there is differentiation, and explanation of why that's valuable. "We're designed to help improve your'e company's performance in the critical area of XYZ. The ROI on doing that is enormous." Yes, any competitor could have sent such an em…
No, I get that the e-mail is part of company's marketing. But I don't like that marketing. The e-mail is pretty much empty of content.
> Yes, any competitor could have sent such an email outlining their USP / positioning. But most of them won't, and that's what makes this an excellent example.
Sure. The act of sending that e-mail is a plus for the company. Still, you could replace their company name with any of their competitors and get an equally valid e-mail - which suggests that there isn't much more than buzzwords in it.
Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales
#45If I got an e-mail like this, I'd most likely go with the competitor. > The FooCorps's of the world have spent a couple decades now in a the race to the bottom and it shows. I have no doubt you can get their product (or a whole raft of others) for a few bucks cheaper than us. AKA. "Our competition suck and it shows." > Our product, Acme, is different. Of course. > Look, FooCorp's customers are switching to Acme in dr…
> AKA. "Our competition suck and it shows." While it might seem ingracious for a competing company to explicitly state this, it doesn't mean it isn't true, or even obvious. And if it is the case, it's definitely something you want to both know and base your decision on.
I agree. Still, there's a difference between saying that our competitors fail in this-and-this way, while we have managed to avoid their mistakes, and our competition sucks while we're special. Calling them "FooCorps's of the world" isn't nice either. I'm not trying to nit-pick here, it's the whole tone of the letter that irks me.
That letter feels devoid of any factual comparison with competitors while still managing to insult them. I tend to steer away from companies that give such messages.
Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales
#46Maybe this is due to lack of context, but with all that "designed to improve your company performance in the critical area" and "investing heavily in great customer service and innovation" that email sounds terribly enterpriesey to me. It all could be boiled down to a one-liner in spirit of "Sorry, but we can't offer our services any cheaper. Our prices are indeed higher, but the services are better than competitors…
I strongly agree. That one-liner of yours is almost perfect. Just let me describe you my exact business needs and tell me how your product can fulfill them, being honest when the competition actually covers something better than you, and I'm yours.'
What happened to honest, straight-forward business?
Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
> AKA. "Our competition suck and it shows." While it might seem ingracious for a competing company to explicitly state this, it doesn't mean it isn't true, or even obvious. And if it is the case, it's definitely something you want to both know and base your decision on.
I agree. Still, there's a difference between saying that our competitors fail in this-and-this way, while we have managed to avoid their mistakes , and our competition sucks while we're special . Calling them "FooCorps's of the world" isn't nice either. I'm not trying to nit-pick here, it's the whole tone of the letter that irks me. That letter feels devoid of any factual comparison with competitors while still manag…
You seem to believe the point of the email was to convince Joseph that Acme was better than FooCorp. I suspect that Joseph already knew that, and the Acme CEO knew that Joseph knew that, and the point of the CEO's email was to put the price difference in context of the increased value given that Acme was better.
Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales
#48Sales 101 is being able to take the conversation away from "price" and change it to "value". 20 years ago, my friend was selling IBM desktops and servers to educational institutes and I learned this from him. There was no way IBM could compete against the prices of those small computer stores, so he had to actively show how buying IBM would save money over the long run, etc. He was a very good salesman so it worked p…
And yet, eventually IBM pulled out of the consumer PC business.
Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales
#49Well that is what everyone says. The thing is that more money does not equal more value. In "IT" I find that it is actually more common for the best product to be the ones that are in the mid price ranges. Not counting open source stuff ofc.
yes, but sometimes things cost money.
for a technical example think of a CDN.
sure you can go with Fast.ly and get a pretty ok CDN which is mostly automated and pretty cheap, or cloudflare which is similar. but they leverage systems controlled by other people a little too much, as such they can't be held accountable for networking fuck ups.
usually costs are human time related, good customer service means paying your helpdesk staff a living wage and retaining charismatic and talented communicators, rather than running them through a sweatshop and having a high turnover.
Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales
#50Maybe this is due to lack of context, but with all that "designed to improve your company performance in the critical area" and "investing heavily in great customer service and innovation" that email sounds terribly enterpriesey to me. It all could be boiled down to a one-liner in spirit of "Sorry, but we can't offer our services any cheaper. Our prices are indeed higher, but the services are better than competitors…
Nothing of what you said is wrong, but your example has no compelling narrative.
There's no example of proof of value, and there's no story behind it, relating it to something your prospective customer cares about as part of their own business.
Your one-sentence condensation is factually correct, but it's all about you, not your customer.