Learning as a competitive advantage

2 minute read

Competitive advantage is one of the most popular terms used in sales and business in general, since it was presented for the first time by Micheal Porter in 1985 (Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance by Michael E. Porter)

It is naturally applicable to sales because Porter talks about two types of competitive advantages: cost and differentiation. It is the dream of every sales professional to propose something different to their customers with a more attractive price than the competitors. As price is easy to compare, the sales strategists worked very hard on differentiation—technology, additional services, customer experience, closeness, image, feeling, and many other advantages.

However, there is one competitive advantage we have neglected for a long time. It is learning. Human beings have been using it since their very first days of existence on earth. Darwin, indeed, gives us a hint. According to his theory of evolution, it is not the strongest who survived; it is the one who easily adapts to the changing environment. In his famous book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari explains how Homosapien could outperform other human species through their learning capacity and adaptability.

Today, we live in a more similar world to a quantum environment rather than a Newtonian environment where specific rules bind everything and are predictable. The Quantum environment is also often referred to as the VUCA world. VUCA for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. And like in old times, learning is still the key to success and even survival.

But how to use it as a real competitive advantage in sales…? By building customer dialogue with genuine curiosity and humility.

Curiosity is not easy to cultivate. It goes deep in the salesperson’s belief in what they are doing. But when it is there, it generates the best questions to understand the real motivation and need of the customer.

Humility (although it is not seen so) is very much linked to mindfulness. A salesperson who can be with the customer at the present moment will take everything with humility. Therefore, the salesperson will unlock the learning as a superpower with those two skills.

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