Top 10 Ways to Take Customers from Your Competition
Top 10 Ways to Take Customers from Your Competition
When I was in the truck tire sales business and wanted to find new customers I sat out in front of my competitions businesses and wrote down their truck tire customer’s names and telephone numbers. (Their names and telephone numbers are on their trucks.)
Once when my appliance business was slow I purchased a large amount of promotional pots and pans sets and advertised: Bring in your receipts from my competitors, I actually listed the competitors names, for your free deluxe set of pots and pans. Sure I had a cost for the pots and pans, but the gain in customers over the long term sure made that up quickly.
10 ways to take customers from your competition
1. Build a Relationship with their Customers.
It takes a bit of time, but when you build a better relationship with your competition’s customers than they have, by constantly providing them with information that improves their business and/or lives, you will eventually be the product and service provider they choose.
Relationships = Trust = Sales
2. Do your Homework.
Before you make your first cold call (by telephone or in person) to your competition’s customer, learn everything you can about the prospect’s industry, their business and them. Learn to talk their language and move at their pace, and learn how the competition is trying to solve their problems. Then find a better way to solve the customer’s problems. Remember the # 1 Rule in Selling is: The one who solves the customer’s problems the easiest for them will get the sale.
3. Shop your competition.
The best way to find out what your competition is doing is to ask them. Telephone them or go in person. Act like a customer. First of all, while they are talking to you they cannot be out selling. And, you will find out everything they tell a customer. Learn and use the good selling points and techniques, and learn and do not use their bad sales activities. You can even get them to send you all of their brochures, pamphlets, samples, etc. All you have to do is ask.
4. Contact their customers in different media.
Don’t go head-to-head in advertising and marketing. Market where the competition doesn’t.
5. Increase the frequency their customers hear from you.
The more familiar the customers become with you through your advertising and promotions, the faster you will establish a relationship with them. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
6. Ask your customers for referrals.
If your customers are buying your products and services, their friends, colleagues and relatives are buying the same products and services from your competition.
7. Contact their customers directly.
Telephone them and/or meet with them in person.
8. Increase the offer.
Win the customer by simply increasing the value of the offer.
9. Thank their customers for considering you.
After you have lost a sale to the competition, thank the lost customer with a thank you note or small gift for considering you as a supplier. Your competition probably is not thanking them. You will have set yourself up for their next purchase.
10. Ask ,Ask, Ask.
You can never fail if all you do is ask for the sale.
Top 10 Ways to Take Customers from Your Competition - To learn more about this author, visit Bob Janet's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
There may have been a time when there was enough business to go around for everyone. But I know there isn’t now. The easiest people to sell your products and service to are people that are already buying what you sell. And the best place to find them is at your competition.
When I was in the truck tire sales business and wanted to find new customers I sat out in front of my competitions businesses and wrote down their truck tire customer’s names and telephone numbers. (Their names and telephone numbers are on their trucks.)
Once when my appliance business was slow I purchased a large amount of promotional pots and pans sets and advertised: Bring in your receipts from my competitors, I actually listed the competitors names, for your free deluxe set of pots and pans. Sure I had a cost for the pots and pans, but the gain in customers over the long term sure made that up quickly.
10 ways to take customers from your competition
1. Build a Relationship with their Customers.
It takes a bit of time, but when you build a better relationship with your competition’s customers than they have, by constantly providing them with information that improves their business and/or lives, you will eventually be the product and service provider they choose.
Relationships = Trust = Sales
2. Do your Homework.
Before you make your first cold call (by telephone or in person) to your competition’s customer, learn everything you can about the prospect’s industry, their business and them. Learn to talk their language and move at their pace, and learn how the competition is trying to solve their problems. Then find a better way to solve the customer’s problems. Remember the # 1 Rule in Selling is: The one who solves the customer’s problems the easiest for them will get the sale.
3. Shop your competition.
The best way to find out what your competition is doing is to ask them. Telephone them or go in person. Act like a customer. First of all, while they are talking to you they cannot be out selling. And, you will find out everything they tell a customer. Learn and use the good selling points and techniques, and learn and do not use their bad sales activities. You can even get them to send you all of their brochures, pamphlets, samples, etc. All you have to do is ask.
4. Contact their customers in different media.
Don’t go head-to-head in advertising and marketing. Market where the competition doesn’t.
5. Increase the frequency their customers hear from you.
The more familiar the customers become with you through your advertising and promotions, the faster you will establish a relationship with them. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
6. Ask your customers for referrals.
If your customers are buying your products and services, their friends, colleagues and relatives are buying the same products and services from your competition.
7. Contact their customers directly.
Telephone them and/or meet with them in person.
8. Increase the offer.
Win the customer by simply increasing the value of the offer.
9. Thank their customers for considering you.
After you have lost a sale to the competition, thank the lost customer with a thank you note or small gift for considering you as a supplier. Your competition probably is not thanking them. You will have set yourself up for their next purchase.
10. Ask ,Ask, Ask.
You can never fail if all you do is ask for the sale.
Top 10 Ways to Take Customers from Your Competition - To learn more about this author, visit Bob Janet's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 | |
 |
No article feedback found. |
| |
Leave Your Feedback |
 | |
| |||
Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
|||
Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
|||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. | |||
 | |
|  |
Subscribe to Bob's articles
 | |
|
|  |
 | |
|
| |
 | |||||||
|
 | ||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
| ||
 |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
|
|
 |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
 |
"Learn straight from Evan how you can Make a Full Time Income (And More) from a Website"
Click Here To Learn More |
|
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
|
|
 Corporate Secrets 10 Questions for your sales rep Making Networking Work Testing and Measuring Leadership Audit For Business |
|
 | ||
 |
Top 50 Productivity Blogs
Top Blogs To Watch In 2008 | |
 |
Top 50 Diversion Blogs
Top Diversion Blogs of 2009 | |
| ||
 | ||||
| ||||
|
| ||||
| ||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
|
|
|
| ||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||