---

Guest post by: Dave Kurlan Become an Author

Tweet

---

---

If your company is like most, you have lots of competition and some of them will do anything to get the business. How would you like to eliminate your competition? I don't mean putting them out of business (some of you wouldn't mind that at all) but I do mean getting them out of the way... There are three ways to eliminate increasing competition for a declining number of opportunities:

1. Stop Trolling for Projects and Opportunities. Many companies call known customers and prospects and ask if they have "Anything going on". This is what creates competition! Rather than trolling for projects, your salespeople should be looking for problems that prospects haven't yet turned into projects and as a result, haven't invited anyone in to present and propose. Warning: This requires excellent hunting and consultative selling skills. If your salespeople haven't developed them, don't bother trying this at home.

2. Show Up Late. You can be as late as "We just made the decision to go with ABC" and still get the business. For all intents and purposes, the competition has stopped and a few well-placed questions can get decision makers to question their decision. Try these two: "Who are you buying from?" and "Did you go with them because they understood your problem and had an ideal long term solution with an immediate impact and favorable ROI, or did they distract you from that important stuff with their price?"

3. Neutralize the Competition. You know what you can do that your competition can't. The key then is for your prospects to want that which only you can do. Your salespeople must ask enough questions to identify a prospect's compelling reasons to buy from you so that your salespeople can identify a unique solution to their problem. When your salespeople ask their prospects why they are interested in doing business with you, their prospects will say it's because you can "Do that thing" they were told about. Then your salespeople simply ask, "can't XYZ do that?"

If you don't care about profits, you can elminate your competition by pricing your offering so low that you are the clear cut winner on price. Of course, that doesn't guarantee the business either!

Certainly, the three bullets above aren't the only things your salespeople can do to eliminate competition. The bigger point is that they probably aren't doing any of the things on the list. They probably arrive at an opportunity the same was that their competitors do; by getting invited in when the prospect is so far along in their buying process that they are expecting a presentation and proposal from 5 companies. Unfortunately, that ain't selling - unless - the salesperson is able to regain control of that process and take the opportunity all the way back to 1st base (Baseline Selling) to discover the compelling reasons to buy. Can your salespeople do that?

Related Articles

  The Prospect Isn't Talking With Any Other Salespeople
  Sales Competencies and Your Competition
  How to Ramp-Up New Salespeople in 90 Days
  Who’s Your Competition?
  What Have Your Salespeople Been Listening To?
  Overcome Call Reluctance - Get Your Salespeople to Prospect
  Top 10 Outcomes When Salespeople Screw Up Selling "Value Added"
  Are you sure you know who you're competing with?
  6 Keys to Make All Sales Calls Easy Sales Calls
  How Many Salespeople Shouldn't Be in Sales
  Kick the Competition to the Curb & Sell Like Crazy
  The CEO Who Needed to Hire Salespeople
  Manage Your Salespeople by Working Smart, More Stack Rankings
  Chinese Salespeople May be the Next Group to Outsell Your Salespeople
  The App Store Provides Insights into Your Company's Sales Challenges
  Turning Order Takers into Salespeople
  Everyone has a plan. Some plans are better than others because they contain all or most of the necessary steps and sequence them in an appropriate order. Most plans have gaps where steps should be and the sequence doesn't lend itself to success. One area where we see this occur repeatedly is when companies are about to hire a Sales VP or Director AND
  Your Salespeople Can't Even Do That?
  New Metrics for the Sales Force - Unusual Thoughts for Unusual Times
  The Enemy in Sales

Related Forum Posts

Re: The 3 Factors That are Limiting Your Productivity
Re: Congratultations to GT!
Re: The 3 Factors That are Limiting Your Productivity
Re: Review My: e-product sales letter
Re: Is Google Search getting better or worse?

Share this article. Fund someone's dream.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

What the Best CEOs Know by Jeffrey Krames

Urgent or Important? Learn to Prioritize

What is Discretionary Cash Flow

Suggestions

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.