Loved a recent post by the self-proclaimed “A Sales Guy” talking about the fact that when a sale focuses on price, it’s because the relative value surrounding the price has no context.

Take, for example, two salmon fillets, one $6.00 a pound, one $9.50. Same size, same weight. All things being equal, you take the cheaper of the two, right?

But what if the $6.00 / pound fillet was raised in a fish farm with 10,000 other salmon and artificially enhanced—and the $9.50 / pound fillet is freshly caught, true Alaska Salmon?

The context controls the value here . . . .

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3-point specialists - Every sales team needs them

Question: What do the names Eddie Johnson, JJ Redick, Trent Tucker, and Craig Hodges have in common?

Answer: They’re all NBA basketball players who were able to have successful careers primarily by being proficient at one thing (and not much else):

Making three-point shots.

These were players who realized that the highest value to their teams was to focus on what they did well—and develop as many “sub-skills” around that core value as they could.

JJ Redick will never win a dunk contest, or be considered anything more than a mediocre defender—but he has perfected the art of coming off screens, and has a lightning-quick shot release.

It’s not always the case, but in today’s Sales 2.0 World, a lot of the time it’s better to be fantastically good at one thing than to be average at half-a-dozen . . . .

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