Have you met your competitor yet? Maybe you should.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Aug 24, 2009 @ 01:11 AM
Since I first designed and taught my first telesales training courses in 1990, I've been competing with a number of people and companies. One in particular operates in my nearby geographical space and has the same customer focus. There are very big differences in our training philosophies, and those clear differentiators make it fairly easy for the prospect to make a decision. So the other day, this competitor and I found ourselves in the same room, because we were making presentations on our training programs to the same people. She's been in business for 15 years, and we'd never been in the same place at the same time! This competitor has a reputation for being a very nice person, so I walked up to her, introduced myself, and told her I was delighted to meet a person that everyone liked so much. Even though we compete consistently, we became pretty good buddies that day. It really is possible to like your competitor.
I'm blogging on this because maybe one day you'll be working a trade show or seminar, and your competitor will have a nearby booth. Yes, I know you dislike the competition, that's how you've been trained, right? But I want you to consider a different approach. Go over and introduce yourself. Pay him or her sincere compliment to break the ice (you can always say "you're a tough competitor," which doesn't give away any trade secrets). What you'll find is that your competitor is probably like you, friendly, tenacious, and smart. You can talk shop a little. And these two things will occur:
1) You'll find out a lot more about how your competitor is selling against you. Five or ten minutes with another person can tell you a lot about how he or she communicates.
2) You'll be making a contact that could be beneficial for your career, future-wise. Very few of us stay with one company forever. You want everyone --- including your competitors --- to know you're a major player. Your competitor will change companies, you'll change companies. Companies are bought, sold, merged, and go out of business every day. That competitor across the aisle may eventually be your best buddy, and you may each end up working for the same company one day.
There's a really antiquated business model that says "hate the competition," that really doesn't hold much value in today's world. In the very last sales job I had, prior to starting my sales training company, I sold a product called the Atron Evaluator. It competed against Mercury Interactive's TestRunner. I beat up on Mercury a lot, and placed a lot of my product. Years later, I ended up training their entire inside sales team. At least one rep I trained there was active at Mercury years before when I was directly competing with them. He was a great guy, and we had fun talking about my old product that afternoon during a break. I'm sure I would have loved meeting him years before too, when we were actively selling against each other. Regardless of what upper management may be telling you, there's no reason to despise your competitors. You should respect them and outsell them. But also remember that your competitors are also colleagues. You have common problems, goals, and objectives. For the most part, if they weren't friendly, smart, and honest, they wouldn't be in high tech sales, either.
To sum up, I'm really glad I met my sales training competitor the other day. We had a great conversation, then went back the next day and started competing against each other again. I feel that I've met a friendly colleague, and it made my day. I've never believed in "slamming the competition" because it's just not professional. You build a lot more credibility with the prospect by complimenting some aspect of your competition, while clearly stating the differentiators that make your solution a better choice. So next time you have the opportunity at a trade show or other industry event, I'd like you to consider running over and meeting your competitor, and adding this important step in building your social and intelligence network to your Best Practices Playbook.