How to Outsell a Competitor Who Slashes Their Price to WinWritten by Dave Stein
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·Uncover what competition uses to deflect their prospects from exploring areas listed above. In technology, you'll often find that lowball competitor has sexiest demo, for example. One client did a terrific job of figuring out that their competitor's service and support resources were stretched very thin. A few subtle and well-planned comments to prospect suggesting they look more deeply into certain "areas" pointed them in right direction. As a result of a bit of probing, prospect found that my client's competitor couldn't appropriately support them post-sale. "If they can't bring people to party now when they are selling to us, it'll only get worse if we become their customer," prospect told our rep. Bingo. ·Discover and quantify value. Whether or not you suspect that a low-price competitor will be included in bidding process, you'll need to quantify value of your offering--in terms of financial return. When you are competing against a competitor who drastically discounts, it's especially important to get close to prospect and really understand their requirements. Not only will that enable you to better position your solution, but, more importantly, you'll be able to uncover areas of potential additional value for customer that can be derived from differentiators that you are selling. If these differentiators are linked to financial impact for prospect, they are not likely to become expendable nice-to-haves, eliminated from consideration in what might turn out to be a commodity buy. Even if prospect doesn't want to or can't invest in that added value now, you've expanded their vision past what your competitor has done and have set yourself up for add-on business later. ·Educate and Position. Winners who are really good at competitive selling subtly but definitively alter their prospect's perception that buying at lowest price is prudent thing to do. You can really only do this effectively when you are selling at appropriate executive levels. ·Talk to buyer about challenging business conditions that face all of us, and natural tendency to buy at lowest price. ·Talk about companies in prospect's as well as your own industry who have gone out of business as a result of tactical discounting, and impact that had on those companies' customers. (You need to do some homework here.) ·Implore prospect to ask questions of other contenders that will expose weaknesses that result from tactical discounting. (See "Educate Yourself," above.) ·Educate prospect on differences between price, cost and business value and impact on of those factors on their business. Understand prospect's own business model, their culture and how they sell to their customers so you can link your approach to theirs. (If they sell a commodity themselves, at lowest price, you may have a serious challenge.) ·Immunize prospect in advance against what will likely be a lowball bid by your competitor. Explain how, when, and why it will happen. Prepare prospect for what you know will come... Don't just sit there and wait. ·Convincingly reduce what will likely be price differentials into meaningful, real terms. "Since there is typically a five-year life associated with my solution, and it will, admittedly require potentially a $240k additional investment, I figure that comes to 4k per month, which, you have to agree is less than a rounding error (or full-time employee) in terms of business value we've been talking about." ·Get creative. If you haven't tried risk-sharing, phased implementations/installations or other creative approaches that will enable you to win business without discounting, you need to do some brainstorming with your team. Very often a cash strapped competitor who has been discounting to win business falls flat on their face when asked to match such creative selling. Few of us can afford to sit back and wait for competition to slash their price and walk away with business. Understand your customer, your competitor, and your value. Then sell. ©2003 The Stein Advantage, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For permission to republish this article call or email us. (845) 621-4100
Before founding The Stein Advantage, Inc., Dave Stein was employed in a diversity of executive sales and marketing roles. Dave consultants, coaches, speaks and trains on competitive sales strategies. He is author of How Winners Sell: 21 Proven Strategies to Outsell Your Competition & Win the Big Sale. Dave was an early adopter of technology and is a recognized expert on technology sales, marketing, and service. More info: www.HowWinnersSell.com.
| | Political Selling 101Written by Dave Stein
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Next, get out a color marker. Draw black circles around isolated executives with no clout, orange lines between people with known connections, and blue circles around groups of people who serve on committees that are known to get funding and get things done. The most influential of influencers get their names encircled in green. Draw red circles around people who are in Quadrant 3 above - those who are in it for themselves. You'll begin to see your customer's organization in a whole new light. Skill: Targeting right influencers Now that you have a map of political/influence environment, you've got to begin targeting influencers. It's a mini-version of same four-part plan I discuss in my book, How Winners Sell and in e-Learning Edition: ·Situation Assessment: What is their background, how do they make decisions, who do they depend upon, what are their successes, failures, with whom do they align, how do they influence others, what's in it for them on a personal and business goals basis... You get idea. ·Goal: Your goal is straightforward. You want them to support you at a minimum, but ideally to sell internally on your behalf. (At a higher level, your goal for deal is to win it.) What's important here is to focus on their goal. If they achieve theirs, you have a much greater opportunity to achieve yours. ·Strategy: Remember my strategy statement format: They are going to buy from me because ____. In this case, they are going to influence a decision in my favor because ______. Remember that strategy is means to and end -- goal. ·Tactics: Every phone call, sales call, visit, lunch, dinner, presentation, discussion by water cooler, email message, and snail-mail letter has to advance your strategy. Some of your tactics will be to prove that you can advance their business goals and some (more discreetly handled) will indicate that you understand and will work toward them achieving their personal goals. I've covered basics of "political" selling. Be aware, there are risks involved: getting in over your head, taking wrong side, over-focusing on politics, not spending time on competitive side, overlooking people who can sabotage your deal. And list goes on. If you don't have any experience with this aspect of selling, I strongly suggest finding a mentor to coach you through. If you or your company is pursuing a critical deal where a strong political strategy is required, or you would like Dave Stein to give a presentation or speech about this subject to your team, give us a call. ©2003 The Stein Advantage, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For permission to republish this article call or email us. (845) 621-4100
Before founding The Stein Advantage, Inc., Dave Stein was employed in a diversity of executive sales and marketing roles. Dave consultants, coaches, speaks and trains on competitive sales strategies. He is author of How Winners Sell: 21 Proven Strategies to Outsell Your Competition & Win the Big Sale. Dave was an early adopter of technology and is a recognized expert on technology sales, marketing, and service. More info: www.HowWinnersSell.com.
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