National Sales Center

Tips On Beating The Sales Competition

For me, sales competition is a love hate relationship. I love sales competition because competition keeps commissions high. No one gets big bucks to sell something that’s easy to sell. On the other hand, I hate sales competition because I take it personally… to a fault. I always wanted to beat my sales competition because they wanted my commissions. Get your hands out of my pockets!

If you want to beat the sales competition, you must first properly identify the sales competition. In most cases, there are two groups of competitors. Let’s call the first group, the Obvious Competition. There may be two health clubs in a neighborhood. As the name implies, the competition each club must beat is Obvious.

I’m in the sales training video business. A quick Web search allows me to identify the Obvious competition I must beat. My product cost less than my competitor’s offering and my competitor’s product fails to cover the entire sales process. I can beat that sales competition but things get complicated when it comes to the second group of competitors. Let’s call that group the Hidden Competition.

Often, two competing companies knock themselves out to beat each other and neither one gets the order. The prospect simply decided to do nothing. When that happens, both companies failed to properly identify the Hidden Competition.

Case in point… There are a number of companies that sell videoconferencing services to business. It’s easy to identify the Obvious Competition. What these companies also need to realize is that they are up against a Hidden competitor they must beat to succeed. That Hidden competition is found in the benefits of having a live “face to face” business meeting. These videoconferencing companies are also competing against the airlines. None of them will get the order if they can’t beat the airlines.

The Hidden competition I must beat is the Economy but not for obvious reasons. It isn’t that salespeople can’t afford a few dollars to improve their sales strategies and earn more commissions. My problem is that too many salespeople use the economy as an excuse for not selling. Instead of looking at their sales skills, they conveniently blame he economy for their poor productivity. My job is to beat that Hidden competition by reminding these salespeople that prospects are still buying. They are just not buying from them.

I hope you’ll remember that in order to beat the sales competition, you must first identify the sales competition. If too many of your prospects simply decide to do nothing, the competition you must beat may be hidden from your view.

To your sales success!

Nick

Tags: Sales Training