Dealing with Competitors

Unless you are selling a product that is making a new market - you will constantly be going against incumbents.

Often times you will get asked “We use XXX - what makes you guys different?” on a cold call or cold email.

There are a few strategies you can use to give yourself the best chance at a meeting.

A few general principles:
1. Never bash the competition: Always take the high road. You can mention your differentiators but we recommend to not explicitly bash/roast your competitors.

If you want to highlight a weakness, ask a trap question.

Lets say you know they are poor at integrations. Instead of saying this just ask them.

“Nice love that you are forward thinking enough to already have a solution for XX in place - just curious how the integration experience been with them?

2. Ask story questions

You want to understand “How we got here” and why they bought a vendor in the first place. This type of question will get them to open up. It can sound like this.

“Curious whats the story of going with XX vendor in the first place? Did you switch from someone else that wasn’t doing a good job or what made you go with them?”

This will give you a ton of awesome context that will allow you to find openings.

3. Ask Comparison questions

Piggybacking on #1, a method you can use to get them to speak on potential issues that you are aware of is to ask comparison questions.

“One of the things we hear is that sometimes integrations can be an issue with them plus their customer support can take pretty long. Is this similar to what you are seeing or what has your experience been with them so far?

4. Ask “1-10” questions

Another great way to get someone to open up on a cold call on how their experience with a vendor has been is to ask 1-10 questions.

“Nice, love that you have someone in place already. Just curious, on a scale of 1 being we need to switch immediately to 10 this vendor is perfect and we will never get rid of them where would you place them on that scale?

5. Give 3 differentiators (Brief)

Once you have done a little discovery and gotten some context and their current situation, you can speak briefly on your product. Make sure to focus on business outcomes!!

Think less “How it works” and more “Here is what you get”

Think of your personal situation - if you wanted to go to your manager for a meeting, you would need a good reason. Those reasons are business outcomes or “What do we get”.

Here they are for good measure
1. Increase Revenue (Make more $)
2. Decrease Costs (Save $)
3. Decrease Risk (Decrease chance of losing $)
4. Increase Efficiency (Make more $ with less $)

These tools should give you a great starting ground for dealing with competitors and opening up the conversation.

Happy calling!