Outsell Your Competition Even When They Have Advantages Over You

I was talking to a very wise and successful friend who just returned from a European sales support trip for his company, an IT business with some proprietary software in a very competitive environment. He competes with a few much larger companies that are very well supported in Europe, successfully outselling his company with excellent products perceived as being better in many ways.

I thought his approach was exceptional and clearly successful.

First of all, he understands his competitors’ strengths and weaknesses extremely well, even as well as he knows his own products. He acknowledges that his competitors have successful products, that they do well in accomplishing stated goals and freely states his opinion regarding the strengths of his competitors to his clients. He acknowledges they do a better job in some important situations.

This creates credibility as it is honest and accurate and is what the potential client thinks anyway. Why bash the competition in this situation? It would make him look bad and he would lose his credibility thereby reducing his effectiveness in selling his self-analysis.

He acknowledges his competitors’ advantages, yet frequently outsells them by understanding what his program does better than his competitors’. Thus, if his advantages are what the client needs to solve a particular problem, despite the advantages of his competitors product, he outsells them by selling what his program does better while recognizing and acknowledging what his competitors’ strengths and weaknesses are. It makes sense. Maybe this is obvious but I see this strategy infrequently implemented. He sells specific strengths he maintains are better than his competitors’ while acknowledging the strengths his competitors’ products have over his product.

So many salespeople simply believe in their products or services and, right or wrong, they sell blindly with the belief that their product is the best and everything else is inferior whether it is true or not. Successful salespeople are far more sophisticated than that and customers are also far more knowledgeable. Selling stupidly will not work. Selling intelligently is a requirement.

Understanding your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses is a fundamental requirement for success in today’s market. Acknowledging what they do well and, yes, what your product does better, is the key to successfully outselling your competition.

Reconsider your approach and see if this very powerful strategy can benefit you.