10 ways to outsmart the competition
By John Graham
It doesn’t take any brains to beat the competition on price. But outsmarting the
competition is quite different — and far more challenging and worthwhile. While low price gets an order, out
maneuvering the competition gets a customer.
Here are 10 moves to put competitors on the defensive.
1. Don’t even think about faking it.
Anyone in business who attempts to control the truth is extremely dangerous. It
can’t be done — at least for very long. There’s always someone watching, blogging or carrying a cell phone with a camera. And
there’s always YouTube.
Vaunted Southwest Airlines took a huge hit for its alleged overly cozy
relationship with FAA inspectors. The company allowed 46 of its planes to fly
that were out of compliance. There were no accidents, but the airline’s image crashed.
For an organization like Southwest that thrives on positive PR, why would it
allow potentially life threatening safety maintenance shenanigans to occur?
No matter what Southwest says about its safety record, the brand has been
harmed. If it can happen to Southwest, it can happen to any company.
2. Always act scared.
Get over trying to be super-confident and cool. That’s nonsense. If you’re not scared, you don’t have a clue to what’s going on. Let’s face it. It’s truly scary on the street.
When Andy Grove, Intel’s CEO, wrote his memoirs, he called it Only the Paranoid Survive. There’s never been a more honest business book.
Acting scared has a big pay off. While everyone else is pretending to be
deliriously happy out on the golf course, your antennae keep you tuned into
threats and opportunities. Just remember that the Bear Stearns CEO didn’t see the train coming. He was too busy snapping his suspenders and spending
Fridays chasing the little white ball.
3. Stop lapping up stupidity.
When it comes to sales, there’s an endless market for BS. Just for fun, I Googled “sales advice,” and in 0.11 seconds, there were 5,940,000 listings! There’s only one reason for all of that. At least 99.99 percent is nonsense.
Here’s the test: if anyone tries to make selling simple, they are lying. All they
want is your money. Selling is tough work and that message doesn’t sell well.
Moral of the story: stay away from anyone and anything that promises to turn you
into a super salesperson.
4. Focus on concepts and ideas.
The biggest problem for salespeople is letting what they sell get in their way — and tripping them up. Customers don’t care about what we sell; they are looking for help to achieve their goals.
Never underestimate the power of ideas. The subprime loan postmortem makes clear
just how many of those who took out these loans weren’t buying homes — they were buying their dreams. What they bought wasn’t a home. It was a retirement ticket, a way to get rich or to be somebody. As it
turns out, the property purchased didn’t even remotely meet their actual needs. The real “pressure” came from within.
The point is not to justify what has happened to millions of Americans. It is
simply to point out how the compulsive power of a dream can compel irrational
behavior.
5. Figure out how you can help your customers.
Actually, most businesspeople couldn’t help customers if they wanted to (and many don’t). The reason is simple: they never make the investment required to understand
the customer.
No matter how much some may protest, a recent survey by Sirius Decisions2 sets
the record straight. Here are their expectations: 93 percent wanted them to be
well-informed of their business issues, while 90 percent expected them to be
informed about the industry in which they compete.
A total of 91 percent wanted salespeople to have done their homework on the
executive’s organization before any meeting, and 64 percent expected them to be informed
about their competitors’ strengths, weaknesses and strategies.
How can a business expect to have value and to help customers when they don’t know anything about their challenges and needs?
6. Get serious about database management.
Most companies are in total disarray when it comes to managing customer and
prospect information, including those using sophisticated CRM systems.
The issues range from inaccurate, incomplete and totally missing information to
a refusal by some to enter any data. Worse yet (if that’s possible), management often is duped into believing all is well, that data is
being collected, updated and tested.
And what about the top 10, 100 or 1,000 customers? What is their value to the
company and how do you show it?
Then, there are prospects. What is the plan for their constant cultivation?
7. Get serious about what customers value.
Companies seem to have an unquenchable psychological need to feel that they are
delivering value to their customers and certainly more value than their
competitors.
And don’t just assume, as too many companies do, that you know what’s important to customers. That’s dangerous. Recently, a company acted on limited input from employees about a
particular customer issue and it turned out to be dead wrong and got an instant
negative reaction from their customers.
Getting serious about learning what’s important to customers requires periodic objective surveys by a third party,
unless you only want to hear good news.
8. Keep your commitments.
Unquestionably, the way to succeed is to keep your promises. If you say, “I’ll get that for you by tomorrow,” do it.
In other words, do what you say you’re going to do. This is your guarantee. Yet, the words make most of us nervous
and antsy. “What happens if a meteor hits and everything is buried in dust? Or, more likely,
“What if my car breaks down or the Internet goes dead.”
Reputations are built on keeping commitments.
9. Emphasize information.
Entrepreneurial business can be easily infected with what Dhananjay
Nayakankuppam, a marketing professor at the University of Iowa, calls the
Blissful Ignorance Effect. It suggests that people who have only a little
information about a product are happier with that product than those with more
information.
Companies are not exempt, either. One organization wanted to get its team
together for a day and come up with strategic marketing concepts. When it was
suggested that obtaining data by surveying customers and prospects could make
the session far more productive, that was viewed as a waste of time.
10. Be direct.
Most people would like to be far more direct than they are. We pull back because
we don’t want to offend anyone. When you think about it, your value to customers is in
being candid with them. This may be more of a male trait, since women seem to
be more direct, which is why they can be so good in sales.
Being direct initiates discussion and dialogue, and helps foster new ideas. This
is what makes a salesperson’s knowledge and experience useful to customers. Failing to be candid diminishes
their value and calls their honesty into question.
Without even realizing it, we often play into the competition’s hands. The problem that causes us to lose business isn’t so much price as it is handing business to a competitor on a silver platter
and not even knowing it.
John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications, a marketing services and
sales consulting firm. He is an author of several books, writes for a variety
of publications and speaks at association meetings. He can be contacted by
phone at (617) 328-0069. His company’s web site is www.grahamcomm.com.
