As I went through the #hrwins process this year, looking at more than 120 HR Tech Vendors, the lack of differentiation within and even across segments was incredible to me. It’s still a huge challenge in our space. Vendors need to get better at differentiation, but what the market needs is HONEST DIFFERENTIATION. Let me tell you why….
If you can plainly articulate who you are, what your product does, the value of it, and how it fits into the marketplace – HR will be able to better understand you and your product, and then spend less time making you jump through hoops just to understand what it is that you do.
Forget the jargon, or fitting your product within the latest trend. Stop speaking buzzword – and start speaking the language your customers do.
If you make yourself clearly understood up front – you will then get the opportunity to make yourself different from other solutions.
It was common for me to listen to a vendor discuss their product for 10 minutes, and then have to ask, “But what do you do?”.
Get your initial pitch to what I call the “street level” so that anyone hearing it could understand it. Be plain about what it is that you do. Respect the time the customer has given you. You’ll find that your honesty and understanding of their “language” may give you just the differentiation you are looking for.
When HR Tech vendors do a good job at honest differentiation, #hrwins.
In the mean time, here is a context sensitive, cloud-based media file that’s been compressed for performance… or, if you prefer – a YouTube video about Truth In Advertising I thought was related and sort of funny. Dudley Moore makes me laugh just looking at him.