Anthony:  All right. So here we are, in the arena, different kind of in the arena, now not interviewing a guest but being interviewed by Beth, who's going to ask me some questions that we get frequently about Eat Their Lunch and Level Four Value Creation and my general approach to sales, which is different and does cause people to question what I'm saying and what we think they should be doing. So, let's go ahead and get started talking about some of the questions and how we can help people think about this so that they can sell in a what I would call, the 21st century way of selling. It's a new time and the evolution of sales means that things just keep getting trickier, so you got to keep pace here.
Beth:  Yeah, it's really true. We get a lot of questions. The one I think you get a lot is about your approach you recommended at Eat Their Lunch. We talk a lot about the creating value and the four levels, so maybe the best place to start just everyone has context is what are the four levels of value and really why should people even care about this idea?Win customers away from your competition. Check out Eat Their Lunch

Anthony: Well, they should care because I wrote it in a book but, no, the thing about the four levels that was interesting to me as I was trying to find some way to explain to people how you approach sales tends to fall into one of four categories. And some people who over index on results, they just produce better results, they tend to start from one side of the conversation and somebody else starts from the other side. So the four levels generally fall into categories like this. Level one means, I'm an account on my company's history and my product. That's what's going to do the selling for me. I'm not the value proposition, I'm not the value creator, you've got to trust that my good company that's been around for all these years is what's going to create value for you and our products and services are going to create value for you and look at this proof.
Anthony: I can even show you logos and big companies just like yours. And level one ultimately means you're going to be perceived as a commodity because of it's just the product and there's nothing more to it. Then I'm going to look for price because there's nothing else to look at and evaluate. Level two means you have a good experience, which means great support, great service. You sold me your product and you also gave me a whole bunch of problems when I have that and I need somebody to help me with that, and I may even have a contract to have certain support, and it's a level up from level one. So you're at level two, but level two includes level one. So you can't be like, "We're really good at support but our product's still terrible and it won't work for you." You need both of those together to get to level two.
Anthony: Level three is where we've been commoditized for, I'm going to say probably 30 years. So I can create a tangible result for you and my competitors can. And I have an ROI calculator and you have an ROI calculator and we both can turn it into a spreadsheet. And what I would call level three now is reactives. You tell me you have a problem, I'll solve it for you. That's different. It's not like level four at all because you're assuming that I can go in and say, "What's keeping you up at night?" And get your dissatisfaction and solve that for you. But everybody does that. So now that level of value, even though it's the third highest level of value that we can see right now, is still commoditized. So it's still not enough for you to be differentiated. Not Easily anyway.
Anthony: Level four is strategic and it means that you're going to enter into a conversation about what's the strategic outcome. And I love this quote from Theodore Levitt from Harvard Business School. He was a marketing professor there and he said, "People don't buy drills, they buy holes.