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Know Your Competition

Written by: Meridith Elliott Powell

Article Overview: If you want to win you have to understand who you are competing against. Your competition are those businesses or individuals that you are losing sales to regularly. If you want to win business, you have to understand what they are offering the your not, what you have to offer that they don't, and craft your sales pitch to make sure the prospect clearly knows why they should choose you!

Know Your Competition



How can you possibly win if you do not know who you are competing against! Defining, understanding and gaining intimate knowledge of your competition is an important step in sales success. If you know your competition, you are much better positioned to communicate the strengths, benefits and overall value of your product or service. Makes sense doesn't it?

Before you can "know" your competition, you have to clearly define your competition. The most effective way to do that is to examine your lost sales. Often I ask my clients who their competition is and they list four or five company names. Yet, when we take a little time to analyze the data, those are not the companies they lost business to. You don't define your competition, the market and the prospect does. So review your sales log and identify who your prospects have determined is your competition, and who they have determined adds more value than you. This is your competition.

Next you have to "know" your competitors strengths and weaknesses. That means it is time for a competitor analysis done via competitor shop. You can have this professionally done, or simply get your family and friends and go visit your competition in person, on the phone, and/or online. Find out what their sales pitch is, what their value points are, and what - if any - weaknesses you can uncover. This is a terrific opportunity to meet their sales people, understand how they engage their prospects, what their follow-up process is as well as the price, features and overall quality of their product or service.

Lastly, you want to define how you stack up. Where are you similar? What opportunities do you have to beat your competition, and where and why do you lose out? Then start filling in the gaps. Use this information to redefine your sales pitch to emphasize your competitor strengths, and redefine similarities as minimal expectations. Then work with your team to turn your competitor weaknesses into opportunities for improvement.

I was working with a small hotel chain in South Florida who defined their competition as the Hilton, the Marriott and other chain's of that size. We performed a small competitor analysis, talking with several past customers that had regularly returned to South Florida but not to this hotel chain. What we discovered was this chain was not competing with the Hilton, Marriott and other large hotels, their competition was actually small family owned motels and bed and breakfasts. In addition, people were choosing these competitors over the small chain because of atmosphere. They were about the same price, about the same in terms of convenience and amenities, but the smaller motels and bed and breakfasts emphasized service. They offered homemade cookies and milk at bed time, cocktail hour for business travelers and a live wake up call rather than a buzzer or recording. Understanding this, we were able to change our marketing and service delivery and reposition our strengths to truly compete in the market.

Remember, you control the sales call. Your asking the questions, listening for information and opportunity, then providing a support statement to prove benefit and value. If you understand how to position your product or service to outshine the competition then you will turn your prospects into customers.

Related Articles
  Competitive Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing
  Kick the Competition to the Curb & Sell Like Crazy
  The Prospect Isn't Talking With Any Other Salespeople
  Sales Competencies and Your Competition
  New Competition in 2008

Article Tags: competing in sales, competition, sales, sales strategy, winning at sales



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Re: Congratultations to GT! - Hi GT, Competition is great and i know I wouldn't be here without it, but it is not the main reason for posting and participating. But I admit, it is the trigger I need to get some work done. If there is none, i create one for myself and try to make it. First prize is ice cream.
Re: Is Google Search getting better or worse? - Competition and that too stiff is something I have always loved and being a true web user I hate spammers the same way and so I am very happy with the recent changes that Google has made and so I must say that it is getting better. I am happy because now we could be able to get and read fresh and unique content instead of the repetitive ones. Now the value of actual SEO will be seen as results now will be completely depend on the hard work SEO and strategies an internet marketing company will apply to get on top of search giant's ranking. surfing the web daily as addiction I have seen most of the webmasters asking several questions related to real time search and how they should commence now to get better and faster results, found lots of useful information and learned new strategies too.
Re: Help needed! - [quote="jeema":1rpkpkod]Hi, I’m a newly single mother who stays at home looking after my son. I have been writing for a long-long time but never thought to do something serious with it. I would like to try freelance copywriting, but don't know the first thing about it. How can I get started? Can anyone help me? I love writing and I could really-really use the extra cash- raising a young child alone really hits the wallet pocket. I appreciate any replies, and hope that I may be able to help in return sometime soon. Thank you very much.[/quote:1rpkpkod] Hi, Jeema It's easier than ever for writers (non-fiction writers, anyway!) to get work these days, via such sites as elance.com (they are who I do work for.) There are plenty of freelance sites on the web, where prospective customers post what they need, and prospective workers "bid" on the jobs, and then the customer chooses which writer he wants to do the work. There's lots of competition, but the wheat soon separates from the chaff and if you can write well, you can usually find steady employment. Competition drives down the price that you're able to charge, however, unless you have niche expertise such as technical or legal writing. PM me for some free advice, if you'd like!


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