With so much publicly available product and competitive information, one of the basic tenets of sales and marketing is the principle of product differentiation. Differentiation refers to your ability to separate yourself, your product, and/or your company from that of your competitors. It is the key to building and maintaining a competitive advantage.5 The competitors in virtually all industries are moving toward differentiating themselves on the basis of quality, price, convenience, economy, or some other factor. Salespeople, who are on the front line interacting with customers, assume one of the most important roles in the product differentiation process.

Differentiating your product helps you stand out from the crowd. It often allows you to distance yourself from the competition. In many cases, the process of differentiation creates barriers that make it difficult for the buyer to choose a competing product simply on the basis of price.6