“If you know the enemy as yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt.”
-Sun TzuHave you ever worked hard at getting a new piece of business? Maybe it was with a customer that perfectly matched your target profile. Or maybe your product or service fit their need so perfectly that it seemed like there was no other solution. Maybe you quoted a price that was far and away the deal of the century. But still they chose your competition. Why? How did it happen?There is only one reason we lose business:We are OUT MARKETED!The competition knew something we didn’t. Regardless of how convincing our pitch or how great our product, service, price or delivery, the client made their decision based on something more. And that particular out-weighted all of the others. Maybe the odds were so heavily stacked against us we didn’t even have a chance and we didn’t even know it. We may have been outsold while happily pitching features and benefits or perhaps the decision was made from the start. Either way we never addressed the real issues or created the right kind of influence and we lost.Good Marketing Skills are NOT Enough
Conventional sales and marketing techniques help us in only two dimensions of the selling effort. They focus on the relationship between the seller and the buyer. This is only part of the equation. It also makes the customer the threat in the process. It’s US and THEM. The real world is three- dimensional:Dimension One – Seller
Dimension Two – Buyer
Dimension Three – CompetitionWhen we leave the competition out of the picture we get a warped view of reality. Kind of like a two dimensional view of a three dimensional world. The real threat in the transaction is the competition. Now, I’m not here advocating some kind of hostile relationship with the competition. Nor am I saying that it’s not possible to collaborate with your competition. Under the right circumstance complementary competitive relationships are good and appropriate. But in most situations your competition wants that piece of business as much as you do. Typical small business marketers, however make no provisions for the competitive threat.Good Products are NOT Enough
While it is true that superior products will produce more potential marketing advantages, it is possible to win the business even with an inferior product. If you judge yourself and your efforts by the strength of your product then you may make the fatal mistake of judging your competition’s potency by the strength of their product or service. Unfortunately most marketing and selling campaigns don’t focus on building demand, strengthening relationships and infiltrating deeper into the prospective client’s organization. Exceptional marketers find ways to become viable with prospective clients despite product or service deficiencies. They play down the product’s deficiencies while playing up the political and philosophical compatibilities between themselves and the prospect. They might even find ways to bring in other vendors under the guise of a “networked solution” to fulfill the prospect’s motive. Or they may strategically muddy the waters not so much to make themselves more attractive but to make YOU less attractive to the prospect.Imagine if there were a way to weaken the competition’s footing while at the same time strengthening your own. Well there is. Here are a few suggestions about how to “prepare” to infiltrate and influence prospects more successfully. Some are marketing oriented and others are sales directed. But in either case they require good coordination of resources and a strong plan:1. Shop your competition as if you were a buyer. Get their marketing material. Subscribe to their newsletters and analyze their advertising. You can’t come up with a plan to thwart the competition if you don’t know who they are or understand their motives. Remember they are the “third dimension” of the sale.2. Early on in the marketing campaign it is critical that we build relationships at varying levels in the prospect hierarchy. I’m not recommending “going over the head” of your key contact but rather to look for ways to bring value to others in the organization BEFORE you try to close the deal.3. Connect with people within the prospect’s organization who have a clear vision of the future of their company and for whom your relationship transcends the current selling situation.4. Seek for greater “political alignment” rather than just a good fit for your product or service.5. Don’t meet competitive price cuts with further reductions. When your competition cuts their price at the 11th hour, they are doing you a favor. Give your prospect something to think about. Have a discussion as to why the competition would wait until now to offer a drastic discount? Could it affect their service in the future? Will they be paying in some other way? What will they be giving up? It is important that we do this in a casual way without disparaging the competition.6. If you are a victim of disparaging comments, you could also use this to your advantage. Early on in the relationship you will likely talk with the client about their background and they will ask about yours. Don’t respond like most with your job history, alma mater and so on. Instead tell them about your values. How important ethics are and how you would never want to work for a company that made disparaging comments. Do this without mentioning the competition. Tell them why you like working for your company. This is subtle but very powerful. Everyone likes to feel as though they are ethical, have integrity and they want to associate with those who do.Sun Tzu’s twenty-five hundred year old admonition to “know your enemy” is still good advice for small business marketers and professionals today. In order to win, one must prepare to win and one must first win in their mind.