How to Get Your Competition Fired

“I’m satisfied with my current supplier” is an objection too many sales professionals run in to and aren’t sure how to get past. Sales trainer and author Randy Schwantz specializes in teaching sales professionals how to overcome this oh-too-common roadblock by driving a wedge between prospects and the incumbent.

Do salespeople put down the competition too often?

No, they don’t. In fact in most sales training they make such a big deal about the fact that it’s unprofessional to talk negatively about the other guy that it has conditioned salespeople to block out that there is a competitor. So many salespeople talk about themselves to a fault. In a typical sales interview, I bet you less than one out of 10 know who their competitor is. They can’t exploit the competition’s weaknesses because they don’t know who it is. My philosophy says there are not two people in an interview, there are three – the seller, buyer and the incumbent.

What is the most effective competitive intelligence tool available to salespeople?

For our client base, we set up this SWAT team sales meeting. We look for special weapons and tactics (SWAT) to go beat the competition. That sales meeting becomes a group effort to learn more about how to beat competitors. There’s an interesting dynamic in most sale teams in that there’s not that kind of environment that enables salespeople to share what they know to help other people win. We put an account right up on the whiteboard and break it out.

What should salespeople do when prospects insist they’re satisfied with their current supplier?

Presume that every time you go into a sales call, that’s exactly what your prospect is going to tell you. And so in preparation for that sales call, ask yourself ‘How do I change them from being satisfied to dissatisfied?’ The prospect has often just lowered their expectations. Unless we can raise their expectations, they don’t need us. It’s about what I do that the competition doesn’t do.

How do you point out your competition’s weakness without putting them down?

There’s a process we call Picture Perfect. It’s a type of question where you’re making the assumption that the prospect is already getting this service from the incumbent. Rather than saying ‘did they do this for you?‘ make the assumption that they did do this and ask ‘are you comfortable with how they did that?’ They discover their current vendor’s weaknesses through your questions.

How do salespeople ensure they have satisfied customers?

Most important is having a pre-defined 12-month schedule that says here’s where we’re going to sit down with the client, review what’s been going on and make sure that they’re satisfied. The more proactive my services are, the more predictable things become for my prospect or client. All of those things that fall through the cracks and cause heartache are pre-planned. When you don’t do that you’re always in a reactive mode and subject to lose the account.

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