Bash Competition for the Win

Deep down, we all want to do it... BASH the competition.

Let's Bash them, SMASH them, and TAKE AWAY all their BIZ!!!!

You have so much dirt and you want to just pummel them into the ground. RIGHT?? (I'm not the only one)

But you can't... it's bad for business. So today we are focused on... how do you talk about them?

It’s a HUGE turnoff to the prospect if you are talking bad about them so definitely don’t recommend that.

There are ways to talk about them that show your strengths and keep you from looking like the icky sales rep.

First… focus should always be on what matters most to the prospect. The only way to do this is be deep diving with them. Don’t assume their world… know it.

Sometimes this can be tough when you hear they are looking at someone else and you immediately want to play the compare game… DON’T go there yet.

Why… you need to understand what they need and why they need it first.

If not… you are going to end up talking about something that doesn’t matter to them as you try to toot your own horn and it pushes them the opposite way.

Also… when you are asking questions, focus on things that you know you do better than your competitor. If there is a specific pain point you solve better than the competition… dig into this pain point.

If you know your competition has some weak spots… use what I call landmines. You aren’t bashing them in any way, you are simply asking questions about how important is it to solve X, when you know the competitor can’t or is not as good.

What not to do… take this information and start saying “XYZ company doesn’t do this and we do”

Here’s why you don’t want to say it like this… typical response is for people to start defending the competitor. They could even be using them and not like them and still defend them.

Another thing… you may not always know the latest of what they are capable of OR sometimes sales reps for the competitor (if they are not using and just exploring) will say they can do something, even if they don’t do it well.

What to do instead… uses phrases like these:

Here’s why companies like you that are struggling with (specific pain point) choose us...

Point 1 (strength) that produces x resultPoint 2 (strength) produces x result

Example: Here’s why companies like you that are struggling with beating out the competition chose us

Sales reps know how to bring up competition without pushing prospects away increased their closing by 90% when a competitor was brought up. Learned better questions to ask to help prospects see for themselves why to chose us that reduced to zero prospect defending competition.

They are a great company and don’t want to bash them in any way… here is why some of our customers who have used them in the past made the change…

(Frustration) was causing (problem) + what it did for them(Frustration) was causing (problem) + what it did for them

Example: They are a great company and definitely don’t want to bash them in any way… here is why some of our customers who have used them in the past made the jump to us…

Knew the competition but they didn’t know how to engage the prospect without pushing them. We were able to help them eliminate 100% awkward conversations around competition. Kept getting beat out by competition because they would avoid talking about it out of fear of bashing. They were able to ask the right questions in Discovery to share strengths that helped them win 80% of deals when specific competitors came up.

The key to this is to make it specific to them. Don’t go with some generic thing that has nothing to do with them.

Show them you were listening and speak to what they want most.

The key takeaway here is this… know your prospect and what’s going on in their world. Ask questions that you know you do better than your competition to see if it’s important to them (and know why). Then instead of bashing the competition, talk about why others have chosen you (by listing the same pain points) and what your solution has done for them.

Happy Stealing Business from Your Competitors! :)

PS… don’t take the above recommendation as a “let me send you a case study”. Tell relevant stories to your prospect instead of some generic case study they will never read and has nothing to do with their use case.