Jeffrey Baumgartner
 

Home     Books      Cartoons     Articles     Videos     Report 103 eJournal      Services     Game     ACT Questions      About      Contact


Share Facebook Twitter Google LinkedIn Pintarest StumbleUpon Email     Follow me Follow me on Facebook Follow me on Twitter    


 

Cartoon: in retrospect, John's idea to sell toasters via the cloud was not a good one.

Sales Model Differentiation

By Jeffrey Baumgartner

A great way to differentiate your product or service is to create an original sales model. Salesforce, Amazon and Dollar Shave Club are successful examples of sales model differentiation. Let's take a look at what each of them have done.

Software as a Service

Salesforce has been making customer relationship management (CRM) software since 1999. Nothing special about that. Loads of companies sold such software then. A lot of it was really good. What made Salesforce unique was that they did not actually sell their software, as nearly every software company in the world did at the time. They made it available on the web (via "the cloud", we would say today) on a subscription basis. Customers no longer had to buy, install and oversee upgrades of enterprise software. Small companies and even independent professionals could afford to use the software. And payment is over time rather than upfront.

This software a service or in the cloud or whatever you want to call it seems boring today. But in 1999 it was a novel concept and one that differentiated Salesforce from many companies with similar products. Their niche has been so successful, it has become the norm today and nearly every software company offers at least some of their products as a service

On-line Bookshop

In 1994, there were gazillions of bookshops in the world. Big bookshops, little bookshops, specialist bookshops and more. But when Jeff Bezos decided to set up a bookshop, he put it someplace brand new: the world wide web. Instead of browsing and buying books in the shop, Amazon customers could, and still can, browse and buy books on the web. Today, on-line shops are so normal even my mother buys from them. But Amazon truly differentiated not only from bookshops, but most shops, when it opened for business more than 20 years ago.

Razors in the Post

Dollar Shave Club sells perfectly ordinary shaving razors and blades. What makes them interesting is that they sell razors and blades through the post using a subscription model. You pay a monthly fee and you get fresh, inexpensive blades every month.

What About Your Sales Model?

How about you? Could you differentiate your sales model? If competing businesses sell their products, could you rent yours as a service? If you competition sell in shops, could you sell over mobile phones via an app? Could you give your product away and make money through advertising? Could you come up with a business model where you pay your customers to take your product? Now, that would be different!

--

 

Erps-Kwerps, Belgium
August 2016

 

Want to Discuss This With Me?

If so, get in touch. I'd love to chat about it with you!



If you enjoyed this article, please share it with your followers:


Share Facebook Twitter Google LinkedIn Pintarest StumbleUpon Email     Follow me Follow me on Facebook Follow me on Twitter    






More Articles


Cartoon: Leading Diverse Teams
Leading Diverse Teams
Diverse teams are more innovative and smarter than homogeneous ones. But, they are also harder to manager. Here are some tips. -- Read the article...



Cartoon: Respectful Questioning
Respectful Questioning
Political and social debate has become too divisive. To find creative solutions to big problems, we need an alternative: respectful questioning -- Read the article...



Cartoon: Questions you should ask when an innovative project fails
Questions you should ask when an innovative project fails
You can learn a lot from the failure of an innovative project, but you need to ask the right questions. Here are those questions. -- Read the article...



Cartoon: Business Should Be More Fun
Business Should Be More Fun
Make your business more fun and see improved creativity, more innovation, reduced stress and more benefits. Here's how to do it. -- Read the article...



Cartoon: Unmarketing the Competition
Unmarketing the Competition
A look at creative, but unethical dirty trick marketing campaigns designed to damage the competition -- Read the article...



Cartoon: Imaginativefulness and the Fisherman
Imaginativefulness and the Fisherman
What does a fisherman wearing a cycling helmet have to do with imaginativefulness? Quite a lot, it seems. -- Read the article...


More articles...

 


 

 

Return to top of page


Share Facebook Twitter Google LinkedIn Pintarest StumbleUpon Email     Follow me Follow me on Facebook Follow me on Twitter    

 

Creative Jeffrey logo

Jeffrey Baumgartner
Bwiti bvba

Erps-Kwerps (near Leuven & Brussels) Belgium

 

 


 

My other web projects

My other web projects

CreativeJeffrey.com: 100s of articles, videos and cartoons on creativity   Jeffosophy.com - possibly useful things I have learned over the years.   Kwerps.com: reflections on international living and travel.   Ungodly.com - paintings, drawings, photographs and cartoons by Jeffrey