Talking about your competitors

(4 minutes read)

One of the best ways to test a salesperson’s attitude, is to ask questions about the competition. Most of the salespeople feel uncomfortable when it comes to talk about the competitors.   

For salespeople, it is like a litmus test.  In real life, competitors reveal our weaknesses.  Therefore, whenever the topic pops up, you can easily understand how a salesperson deals with his/her weaknesses.  Does he/she attack the competitor, or tries to defend his/her position, or avoids the topic at all cost?  The ideal way to deal with that is to focus on those weaknesses and work on improving them on constant basis. Yet, how to face situations where your customer makes one to one comparison to decide?  First, avoid direct comparison with your relatively weak points and drive the discussion towards your strong points.  In other words, do not go for a dog fight. Let us take an example with our salesman named John who is working for a company selling machines to large industrial customers

Recently one of them installed John’s equipment and competitor’s equipment side by side to test them.  During the decision-making meeting, the customer told John that his equipment performs as well as the competitor’s.  However, the competitor had one support person located (by chance) in the same city as the customer while John’s closest technician was 300km away.  And they presented it as a competitive advantage and asked John what he proposes.  Instead of trying to convince the customer that despite the distance, John’s team can also be very reactive etc., he had the following conversation:

John: What makes you think that you might need immediate intervention? 

Customer: Nothing, it is just great to have one person who can be on site in one hour whenever we need.

John: Sure, in that case, should we understand that you ask every supplier to have one technician here in this city?

Customer: No, not at all.  It would not be realistic anyway. We are an international industrial company, and we have our own preventive measures against potential break downs.

John: And what are they?

Customer: We have our own maintenance team, and we ask every supplier to organize preventive maintenance training for them.  Additionally, we stock all critical spare parts and when necessary, we keep one back up unit on site.

John: This is great.  Did you know that our equipment can be connected to a cloud server and provide all necessary data in line with the usage intensity and alert your teams for preventive maintenance?

Customer: No, is it a standard feature?

John: It is optional, but we can propose you an annual preventive maintenance contract -like we do with all global industrial customers-  in which we can include this option as well as an advanced maintenance training for your teams.  And this contract would be valid if you choose to move the line to another location/country in the feature.  Our local teams would take charge.

Customer: Interesting, in which countries you provide support services?

John: Many, why don’t we prepare a draft agreement for you with all the details and contact information of our international support hubs, so that you can have a global view?

Customer: That sounds great! Thank you.  Then, I will put you in contact with our maintenance manager to discuss the details.

As you can see, John did not try to defend himself against the strong advantage of the competitor. Nor did he try to explain the customer how unrealistic the request is. Instead, he chose to focus on what he can propose with the strengths of his company. To do so, he first tried to understand the reason behind customer’s comment.  Then, he took the opportunity to mention a new feature of his equipment and more importantly, he brought the focus of the discussion to international support rather than local support in one particular location.  Because his company is present in more countries than any competitor.  Additionally, he used customer’s comments to propose an annual maintenance contract.

To sum up, when you face your competition, you have two choices.  Either you get aggressive and try to fight back and beat them.  Or you focus on the weaknesses they reveal and work on constant improvement. Once you have this mindset, you can then, manage the discussions just like John did.