In sales, competition is tough – period! Someone always has a better product, a lower price, better results and the list goes on. The truth is you can usually come up with more reasons your customer should be buying from your competitor rather than why they shouldn’t.
However, if you want to succeed in sales you need to stop focusing so much on your competition. Why? Because what your competitor does or doesn’t do is outside of your control. Think about it; there is nothing you can do about the competition – you can’t make them lower their price, you can’t make them create a faulty product, you can’t even make them worse at sales– you can’t do anything.
Also, when you focus on your competition, you usually focus on what they are doing well. That positions you to lose the sale before your even get started. When you spend time looking for your competitors’ strengths, you’ll never see their weaknesses. So, if you can’t see their faults, you will never find your competitive advantage.
Now certainly you need to know your competition, understand who they are and their approach to sales. However, once you have the basics, turn your attention and your focus back to you and the strengths of your products and services. Invest more time there. Learning how to use your assets to position yourself more valuable with your customers, and leave your competition in the dust. One of the secrets of top sellers is that they strive to understand and know their clients – very well. They dig down, deep on their clients and their industry. Their mission is to find problems and opportunities for their clients before the client is aware of it.
Sure, competition is always tough, but it is rarely the best product or service that gets the job done, it’s the best sales person that closes the deal!
