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| A Note from the Editor |
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| Want to Become a Sales SuperStar? |
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Our friend, the bestselling author and
sales expert, Paul McCord has a new book out called SuperStar
Selling: 12 Keys to Becoming a Sales SuperStar .
If you're ready to take your career to the next level,
I strongly encourage you to check it out.
When you buy your copy at Amazon, you will also get a
treasure trove of bonuses from top experts. This is a
limited time offer, so check
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| To Your Success, |
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Tina LoSasso
Managing Editor, SalesDog.com |
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| P.S. Once you have bought your copy from
Amazon, go to: http://www.thetwelvekeys.com/html/register.html
to claim all of your bonuses. |
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| This Week's Newsletter |
Dealing Effectively with the Competition
It's so tempting to bad mouth the competition, especially when
your prospect starts complaining about their latest foul-up. How do
you resist? And, how can you effectively contrast your solutions without
sounding unprofessional? Let Dave Kahle show you.
"This would be a great business if it weren't for the competition!"
While we can't change the competition, we can certainly be responsible
for our attitudes and behaviors toward them. What we say and how we
act about the competition can have a bearing on our bottom line. An
appropriate attitude and set of practices for dealing with the competition
should be an essential part of every salesperson's repertoire.
Respect the competition
Speaking badly about competitors, looking down on them, finding fault
with them and generally disparaging them are common behaviors I see
frequently among the companies with whom I work. It is easy to understand
why. In sales meetings we are constantly told how our products stack
up against the competition, what makes our service superior, and why
our people are more experienced and more knowledgeable.
While your new product may contain some features that your competitor's
does not, his product probably contains some features that yours lacks.
While you claim your service to be superior, so does he. Your people
are probably not more experienced and knowledgeable than his. Your
competitor probably offers a sound business option to your customers.
So, bury those attitudes of superiority, and cast off that disdain
for the competition. If your customers didn't think your competition
presented a viable option, they wouldn't be buying from them.
Don't believe everything you hear
We occasionally hear our customers complain about the competition
or tell stories of how they messed up on some project. Rather than
allowing this to confirm your smug view of the competition, take it
with a healthy degree of skepticism. Understand that the people who
share these stories with us are typically those customers with whom
we have the best relationship. What we see as confidential information
about our competitor's weaknesses may just be the natural human inclination
to tell us what they believe we want to hear. Our friends want to
find common ground with us. And our animosity toward the competition
provides potentially productive soil to plow.
It's been my observation that many of those customers who are reporting
on the flaws in the competition to you, are reporting on your flaws
to them. Don't view everything you hear as 100% accurate.
Don't speak badly about the competition - ever
Disparaging the competition, speaking badly about the company or the
individual salespeople -- using little innuendos and side comments
- all of this says more about us to our customers than it does about
the competitors to whom we are referring. It reveals us as small-minded,
petty, smug and far more interested in ourselves than we are in our
customers.
This is something I learned the hard way, in one of the most embarrassing
incidents in my tenure as a salesperson.
I was selling a piece of capital equipment, representing a product
line that was 35% more expensive than the competition. However, the
additional cost was justified in a far superior product. The competition
had been experiencing a problem with one component of their system
- the batteries easily worked loose and disconnected. They solved
that problem by using a rubber band to provide additional tension
on the battery and keep it from jiggling loose.
I pointed that out to my potential customer, asking her how comfortable
she felt with a product that was held together with a rubber band.
My customer's response?
"Do you know what I don't like about you?" she asked. I
was floored and speechless. "You are so negative about your competitors."
I turned beet red, stammered an apology and retreated quickly. That
incident has stuck with me for decades.
Now the question becomes: If I don't want to speak badly about the
competition, how do I present the advantages of my offer relative
to the other guy's?
Here are four options:
1. Consider the competition's offer as irrelevant
I believe this approach to be the most effective in the long term,
because it focuses on the customer, not the competitor. If you have
done an accurate, detailed job of understanding the full nature of
your customer's situation, and have presented a solution that precisely
meets the customer's requirements, what difference does it make who
the competition is, or what the competition does?
The issue is not the competition; it is your ability to meet the customer's
needs. Your mindset, from the beginning, is not a bit focused on the
competition, but rather is 100% targeted to completely understanding
the customer's requirements. The conversation is not about how you
compare to the competition, but rather how you meet the customer's
needs.
Obviously, this approach is not for every selling situation. It requires
a commitment on the part of the salesperson to spend time with the
customer in order to fully understand his needs. It assumes that you
have the ability to shape an offer that meets the customer's needs.
And, it requires a more professional self-image on the part of the
salesperson, who sees himself/herself as a "consultant"
to the customer. If your routine is limited to asking for the technical
specifications and then quoting prices, this approach is going to
be outside of your reach.
In the long run, however, it provides the ultimate response to the
competitor's presence in your accounts.
2. Speak in generalized, not specific, terms
It is more effective and more professional to speak in general terms
about the class of competitor than it is to speak specifically about
a particular company or person.
For example, if you want to make the point that you favorably compare
to X company (that national competitor), say something like this:
"Generally, large national companies are more concerned about
their own financial performance than they are the needs of the local
customers. Since we're local and family owned, we highly value every
customer, and that translates itself into more personal and responsive
service." Notice, you didn't talk about the competitor, you talked
about "national companies" - a general class of competition.
By "generalizing" any references to your competition you
can point out your distinctiveness without being negative about any
specific competitors.
3. Use questions, not statements
It is far more effective to put questions in the customer's mind that
he should ask about the competition, than it is for you to make statements
about the competition. Remember, your comments are always suspect,
because the customer knows that you have a vested interest in persuading
him one way or the other. His observations, however, carry far more
weight than anything you can say.
Help the customer make his own observations by providing the questions
he should ask. For example, don't say, "Y Company is a small
local company that doesn't have the systems or technology to support
you in the long run." Instead, say, "One of the questions
you should ask of every vendor is this, 'What technology and systems
do you have in place to assure that you will be able to support us
for the long run?'"
4. Use tables and charts
This is a commonly used technique to point out the differences between
your offer and your competitors' in a detailed and professional way.
Imagine a chart, with the salient features of your offer down the
first row, and across the top your company's name, followed by "Option
A," "Option B," etc. with the options being your competitors.
Then use a check mark to indicate the inclusion of that feature in
each company's offering.
This can be a highly effective in pointing out the differences between
your offer and your competitors'. In addition to the detail that it
presents, the document itself is often prepared by your company, not
by you personally, which means you are one step removed from being
the source of this information. The problem with this approach is
that the source of the information is your company, and you are always
suspect.
Regardless of which one or combination of these approaches work for
you, the discipline to deal with the competition in a professional
manner is one of the hallmarks of the best salespeople. As a sales
professional, you should think through and decide on an approach that
fits for you.
Dave Kahle is a consultant and trainer who helps his clients increase
their sales and improve their sales productivity. Dave has trained
thousands of salespeople to be more successful in the Information
Age economy. He is the author of over 500 articles, a monthly e-zine,
and six books. You can join Dave's "Thinking About Sales Ezine"
on-line at www.DaveKahle.com/MailingList.html.
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| Praise for Top Dog Sales
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entertaining, and very broad in topic selection."
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