How to be a Tough Yet Ethical Competitor »
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In today’s world of “hype and snipe” selling, how do you effectively compete against companies who will literally do anything to win a sale? Business to business sales professionals, who depend upon personal integrity particularly and the delivery of business value to their customers face a daunting challenge.
The answer lies in the “Competitive Strategies and Tactics” component of your sales plan. The key here is a complete understanding of not so much what your competitor sells, but how they sell it.
Internet research provides a tremendous amount of information about our competitor’s company, products, services, customers, future direction. And, if they are a public company, provides introspection about their key strengths and weaknesses. However, the top sales professionals should not depend solely on the Internet or any written source for the information they need to win against their opponents.
What you really need to know about your competitor
As top sales professionals, you need to know how your competitor, especially, how the sales person you are competing against, sells on the street. The Chinese philosopher, Sun Tsu, wisely said, “The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”
That opportunity often comes through the setting and execution of “traps” in support of an overall competitive strategy. Traps are competitive tactics designed to either nullify a competitive attack or provide you with competitive advantage based upon strengths and weaknesses of your competitor, or the behavior your opponent is known to exhibit.
· With that in mind, answering the following questions about your competition provides a basis for setting effective competitive traps:
· What does your competitor count upon to win? Product? Service? Price? Relationships in their accounts?
· When they lose, why do they lose?
· What do they do when they are losing? Cut their price? Negative sell against you?
· Where do they typically look for allies within an account? Finance? IT? The CEO?
· When do they call in their management for help? Early on or when they are losing?
· What do they say about your product? Do they exploit your weaknesses or discredit your strengths? Do they spread rumors that have no basis in truth?
· What do they say about your company? What weaknesses in your offering do they attempt to highlight?
· What are the opposing sales rep’s personal strengths and weaknesses? Is that person smart? Does the opposing rep have a temper?
· How does the competition hide weak parts of their offering?
· If they decide to change the groundrules in a sales campaign, what features of their product do they introduce?
· Which parts of their offerings do they exaggerate?
· Do they do typically anything unethical when they sell? Do they lie on RFPs or misrepresent their capabilities in presentations or demonstrations?
· What traps do they set against you? Do they have their allies ask embarrassing questions during your presentations?
· Does the salesperson keep his or her promises?
· What do they do if (or when) they panic? Go over the decision maker’s head?
· What is that rep's record of wins and losses?
· How much does the opposing sales rep know about the industry into which you are selling?
· How long has the opposing rep been employed by that company?
· When they are winning, and they are trying to accelerate the pace, what incentives does the competitor offer the prospect?
How do you set a competitive trap?
Here is an example of a simple competitive trap. You have learned that your competitor typically goes directly to your prospects with any bad news about you, such as your company missing a financial target or you losing an important customer. Do you wait and hope that your prospect won’t care? That’s not what the pros do. They inoculate their prospects against competitive attack by going to the prospect first, carefully positioning the bad news. They use this formula:
1. Tell the prospect that you have some news to share with them;
2. Tell the prospect the bad news;
3. Tell them why and how it happened;
4. Tell them what their company is doing to remedy the situation;
5. Tell them why they believe that the situation is not likely to repeat itself (if it isn’t);
6. Most importantly, tell them that anyone who may try to exploit the situation rather than sell their own strengths probably has a few things of their own to hide.
What will using this approach accomplish for you? At a minimum, you will deprive your competitor of what might have been a tactical victory, while building your prospect’s trust in you. Even better, if earlier in the selling cycle, you were able to establish negative selling as unacceptable behavior in the eyes of your prospect, this skirmish might be enough to cause your competitor a real setback.
Always “recruit” an ally within the account to sell on your behalf
The top sales pros know that 90% of all selling through an evaluation committee takes place when they are not there. Therefore, one of the most effective competitive strategies is to recruit and train an ally in your prospect’s company to sell on your behalf in your absence. Target someone who is respected with proven political influence. Work with that person until he/she is thoroughly convinced that you and your company are best suited to be selected. Once that person is solidly on your side, begin providing them with responses to the sales objections that you know your competitor will raise against you. If that ally feels that you are competitively disadvantaged, be prepared to provide them with key issues relating to the competition about which that person feels the rest of the evaluation team should be informed. Of course, providing this information must be done with caution, or else you might wind up getting caught in a trap yourself.
In summary, effective competitive selling is not accomplished by the seat-of-one’s pants. Planning, timing, strong relationships with your prospect, and knowledge of the competition are today's keys to victory.
_______________
© 2000 -- The Stein Advantage, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Published with permission.
For the past 10 years, Dave Stein has focused on coaching experienced sales teams in 48 states and 20 countries to win business. His unique skills in competitive sales strategies and political positioning has enabled those sales professionals with whom he has worked to win tens of millions of dollars of business against what should have been insurmountable odds. Dave is an exhilarating keynote speaker and a member of the National Speakers Association. Dave can be reached at: dave@thesteinadvantage.com
By Dave Stein
In today’s world of “hype and snipe” selling, how do you effectively compete against companies who will literally do anything to win a sale? Business to business sales professionals, who depend upon personal integrity particularly and the delivery of business value to their customers face a daunting challenge.
The answer lies in the “Competitive Strategies and Tactics” component of your sales plan. The key here is a complete understanding of not so much what your competitor sells, but how they sell it.
Internet research provides a tremendous amount of information about our competitor’s company, products, services, customers, future direction. And, if they are a public company, provides introspection about their key strengths and weaknesses. However, the top sales professionals should not depend solely on the Internet or any written source for the information they need to win against their opponents.
What you really need to know about your competitor
As top sales professionals, you need to know how your competitor, especially, how the sales person you are competing against, sells on the street. The Chinese philosopher, Sun Tsu, wisely said, “The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”
That opportunity often comes through the setting and execution of “traps” in support of an overall competitive strategy. Traps are competitive tactics designed to either nullify a competitive attack or provide you with competitive advantage based upon strengths and weaknesses of your competitor, or the behavior your opponent is known to exhibit.
· With that in mind, answering the following questions about your competition provides a basis for setting effective competitive traps:
· What does your competitor count upon to win? Product? Service? Price? Relationships in their accounts?
· When they lose, why do they lose?
· What do they do when they are losing? Cut their price? Negative sell against you?
· Where do they typically look for allies within an account? Finance? IT? The CEO?
· When do they call in their management for help? Early on or when they are losing?
· What do they say about your product? Do they exploit your weaknesses or discredit your strengths? Do they spread rumors that have no basis in truth?
· What do they say about your company? What weaknesses in your offering do they attempt to highlight?
· What are the opposing sales rep’s personal strengths and weaknesses? Is that person smart? Does the opposing rep have a temper?
· How does the competition hide weak parts of their offering?
· If they decide to change the groundrules in a sales campaign, what features of their product do they introduce?
· Which parts of their offerings do they exaggerate?
· Do they do typically anything unethical when they sell? Do they lie on RFPs or misrepresent their capabilities in presentations or demonstrations?
· What traps do they set against you? Do they have their allies ask embarrassing questions during your presentations?
· Does the salesperson keep his or her promises?
· What do they do if (or when) they panic? Go over the decision maker’s head?
· What is that rep's record of wins and losses?
· How much does the opposing sales rep know about the industry into which you are selling?
· How long has the opposing rep been employed by that company?
· When they are winning, and they are trying to accelerate the pace, what incentives does the competitor offer the prospect?
How do you set a competitive trap?
Here is an example of a simple competitive trap. You have learned that your competitor typically goes directly to your prospects with any bad news about you, such as your company missing a financial target or you losing an important customer. Do you wait and hope that your prospect won’t care? That’s not what the pros do. They inoculate their prospects against competitive attack by going to the prospect first, carefully positioning the bad news. They use this formula:
1. Tell the prospect that you have some news to share with them;
2. Tell the prospect the bad news;
3. Tell them why and how it happened;
4. Tell them what their company is doing to remedy the situation;
5. Tell them why they believe that the situation is not likely to repeat itself (if it isn’t);
6. Most importantly, tell them that anyone who may try to exploit the situation rather than sell their own strengths probably has a few things of their own to hide.
What will using this approach accomplish for you? At a minimum, you will deprive your competitor of what might have been a tactical victory, while building your prospect’s trust in you. Even better, if earlier in the selling cycle, you were able to establish negative selling as unacceptable behavior in the eyes of your prospect, this skirmish might be enough to cause your competitor a real setback.
Always “recruit” an ally within the account to sell on your behalf
The top sales pros know that 90% of all selling through an evaluation committee takes place when they are not there. Therefore, one of the most effective competitive strategies is to recruit and train an ally in your prospect’s company to sell on your behalf in your absence. Target someone who is respected with proven political influence. Work with that person until he/she is thoroughly convinced that you and your company are best suited to be selected. Once that person is solidly on your side, begin providing them with responses to the sales objections that you know your competitor will raise against you. If that ally feels that you are competitively disadvantaged, be prepared to provide them with key issues relating to the competition about which that person feels the rest of the evaluation team should be informed. Of course, providing this information must be done with caution, or else you might wind up getting caught in a trap yourself.
In summary, effective competitive selling is not accomplished by the seat-of-one’s pants. Planning, timing, strong relationships with your prospect, and knowledge of the competition are today's keys to victory.
_______________
© 2000 -- The Stein Advantage, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Published with permission.
For the past 10 years, Dave Stein has focused on coaching experienced sales teams in 48 states and 20 countries to win business. His unique skills in competitive sales strategies and political positioning has enabled those sales professionals with whom he has worked to win tens of millions of dollars of business against what should have been insurmountable odds. Dave is an exhilarating keynote speaker and a member of the National Speakers Association. Dave can be reached at: dave@thesteinadvantage.com