How to Win Customers Without Trashing The Competition

Ask yourself: how much time do you, or your company, spend understanding your competitors, doing a feature-by-feature comparison, price comparison, SWOT analysis, etc?

Having built all this valuable competitive insight, who do you then share it with? Do you “trash the competition” in front of the customer? Do you create one of those wonderful feature comparison tables where your company has mostly ✅s and your competitors have one or more ❌s?

Everything we do should help the Buyer navigate their Buying Process. Let's look at the scenarios where competitors may be introduced, and explore a strategic approach to guiding buyers through their decision-making process.

1. Why change?

Uncover quantifiable reasons, driven by risks or opportunities the buyer faces.

Instead of focusing on competitors, it's crucial to understand why the customer is hesitant to make a purchase. They may be exploring whether changes are necessary, even if they currently work with you. Mentioning competitors could inadvertently prompt them to seek out other options.

2. Change to what?

Identify solution criteria that align with promised results, forming a compelling business case.

The customer is trying to identify what they need, not who to buy it from. If you introduce features from competitors that you don't have, this may enter into their solution criteria. Again you are introducing the competition.

3. Change to who?

Pinpoint the best supplier to deliver outcomes as outlined in the business case.

Now you can talk about the competition but not by trashing them. If you've influenced solution criteria effectively, you've created a competitive advantage. If you feel you are in a price race, shift the conversation to value rather than engaging in a transactional pricing discussion.

4. Commit to change

Illuminate the necessity of change and the consequences of standing still.

Once consensus is gained, the only circumstance where a competitor may be brought into the conversation is if a new element disrupts the established consensus. You may have to “rewind” the process to deal with this.

Overcoming Hidden Competitors

Hidden competitors are not just traditional rivals. They include anything that may hinder progress in the buyer's journey.

Let’s relook at the buying process and identify likely hidden competitors:

1. Why change?

Your hidden competitor is anything that encourages the buyer to remain with their current approach, this could include:

• Let’s start with the obvious – anything that generates fear associated with change.

• Insights from others that say that everything is OK.

• Fear of looking bad, maybe they picked the current solution.

• "My end users are happy, I would rather leave things alone."

Beyond fear there could be strategic reasons for not doing anything:

• Budget freeze.

• Too many projects happening.

• Imminent Management changes.

You need to identify the hidden competitor and then help the buyer discover that the risks, or opportunities associated with change outweigh the perceived reasons to stay with the current state.

2. Change to what?

Your hidden competitors will be aligned to the impact of identified solution criteria. They tend to be perceptions around facts and also the general cost of change.

Perceptions around facts could include:

• Technical concerns - "It won’t work in our environment."

• Time frames – "It will take too long."

• Technology changes – "With everything changing so quickly and the spread of AI I am better off waiting to see what happens next."

Cost of change:

• "We can't afford the downtime associated with changing systems."

• "There is a cost of integration which we cannot afford."

• "I cannot afford to change processes and train everyone to use a new solution."

• "I am not sure I can get support from IT or my end users on this."

Again you need to identify the hidden competitor and then help the buyer discover that the risks, or opportunities associated with change outweigh the perceived reasons to reject the solution criteria.

3. Change to who?

You should have overcome the hidden competitors if the buyer is at this stage. You are now in the traditional comfort zone of confronting competitive offerings.

4. Commit to change

The hidden competitor may re-appear. This is because new stakeholders may get introduced and start to ask questions. How do you deal with this?

1. Reinforce the reason to change that gained consensus at Step 1 - 'Why change?'

2. Reinforce the solution criteria that gained consensus in Step 2 - 'Change to what?'

3. Do not focus on your competitors!

What if you are the incumbent?

If you're the incumbent supplier, consider:

1. Can you create a compelling reason not to change? Focus on the hidden competitors at this stage.

2. If you can't, pre-empt the reason to change and introduce it to the buyer before others do. The rest of the buying process remains the same whether you are the existing supplier or not.

Remember, whilst you stopped selling once the customer bought from you, your competitors will continue to sell to them. Don't get complacent or you may find out that your competitor is dictating the “conversation”.

Focus on helping the buyer improve their business, steering clear of unnecessary discussions about alternatives. By conquering hidden competitors, you naturally outperform traditional rivals. The buyer is looking to be helped, and it's your job to help them.