Competitive Selling: Out-Plan, Out-Think, and Out-Sell to Win Every Time (BUSINESS SKILLS AND DEVELOPMENT) - Hardcover

Chase, Landy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0071738894 ISBN 13: 9780071738897

Publisher: McGraw Hill, 2010

Synopsis

Become a Dominant Predator in today’sdog-eat-dog sales environment

There’s a hard fact that we all have toface: Buyers have evolved. They’vebecome shopaholics. They almostnever consider a single vendor when makinga buying decision. Instead, they call you―and your competitors―and choose frommultiple options. They know that pitting youagainst your competition always works totheir benefit.

In today’s sales environment, only the strongestand smartest live to sell another day.Master sales strategist Landy Chase callsthese top performers dominant predators―salespeople who consistently win business,at higher prices, by crushing the competitionat every turn. He knows exactly how they do itbecause he’s the one who teaches them howto do it. Now, it’s your turn.

In Competitive Selling, Chase reveals themaster strategy of the dominant predator,offering a proven, step-by-step process forentering the fray as a prepared and confidentwarrior. You’ll learn how to:

• Identify your competition before meetingwith the buyer
• Open competitive selling opportunities
• Out-flank your competitors using theClient Needs Analysis
• Eliminate competitors withoutbadmouthing them
• Stand out to the decision makers
• Win sales even as the higher-priced option

It’s a jungle out there. The goal in today’swinner-take-all world of selling is to makeevery selling opportunity an unfair fight―inyour favor. You have to adapt to yoursurroundings and take control of your environment.Be assured, your competitors areout there trying to do the same thing.Competitive Selling provides the techniquesand skills for seizing the advantage beforethey even see you coming.

About this title

About the Author

Landy Chase founded his own sales training and consulting firm in 1993 and has clients in more than sixty industries on five different continents. He has delivered more than two thousand paid presentations as a professional speaker and holds the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation from the National Speakers Association, the highest earned level of excellence in the industry.

From the Back Cover

Competitive Selling has what you need to out-maneuver, out-negotiate, andout-sell everyone who stands between you and the sale. It reveals exactly howtoday’s highest achievers win every battle and provides a blueprint for replicatingthis success, including how to:

• Position yourself as the expert on your client’s needs
• Differentiate your value proposition from that of the competition
• Access the most important decision makers prior to writing a proposal
• Sell winning proposals that ignore stated budgets
• Negotiate effectively when selling against other competitors
• Close sales that lock out competitors and win you the business

A complete reeducation on how to approach the sales process, CompetitiveSelling provides a brutally realistic view of the sales environment today and offersthe means for fighting your way to the top of the food chain—and staying there.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

COMPETITIVE SELLING

OUT-PLAN OUT-THINK OUT-SELL TO WIN EVERY TIME

By LANDY CHASE

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Landy Chase
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-07-173889-7

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Dominant Predator
Chapter | 1 Value versus Price: The Real Reason You Lose to Competition
Chapter | 2 Due Diligence: Establishing the Competitive Playing Field
Chapter | 3 The Notorious D.I.G.: How to Conduct the Client Needs 
Analysis
Chapter | 4 Role Call: Identifying the Inner Circle
Chapter | 5 Games People Play: Politics in the Competitive Sale
Chapter | 6 Face Time: How to Gain Access to the Inner Circle
Chapter | 7 The Process of Elimination: Removing Competitors from 
Consideration
Chapter | 8 Forget the Budget: How to Present the Winning Proposal
Chapter | 9 Gaining the Upper Hand: Negotiation in the Competitive Sale
Chapter | 10 The Art of Closing: Getting to "Yes" Without Lowering Your 
Fees
Chapter | 11 Behind Enemy Lines: How to Sell to the Competitive User
Chapter | 12 It Is What It Is: How the Ordinary Become Extraordinary
Index

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

VALUE VERSUS PRICE

The Real Reason You Lose to Competition

You purchased this book because you are trying to figure out why you're losingsales to the competition. This book will provide the answers that you seek.However, to get the return on investment (ROI) that you expect from yourpurchase, you and I need to establish agreement on one key point beforeproceeding: You are not losing sales to your competitors because their price islower than yours.

That assumption, while virtually universal in the arena of business-to-business(B2B) sales, is fundamentally flawed. It is a lame excuse that you can give toyour boss if you wish, but it has no place here. In fact, if you believe thatpricing plays a role in whether or not you win competitive sales, you shouldplace this book back where you found it and get your money back immediately, foryou are misdiagnosing the source of the problem. Until you accept this simplepoint about pricing for what it is, this book will not help you.

Still reading? Then keep an open mind, and I'll prove my point in the followingscenario.

Let's Role-Play

In this exercise I will be your potential customer, and you will play the roleof the salesperson. Here is the scenario: I am currently in the market for whatyou provide, and I have called you in to discuss my wants and needs. You are nowat my office. Incidentally, I also have made an identical call to one of yourcompetitors, with whom I will be meeting at a later time. I have not shared thisinformation with you.

You and I now have our initial sit-down to discuss my needs and yourcapabilities. We have a positive initial meeting, and you handle the discussionwell. You ask a number of questions about my business, and I provide you withanswers to your questions. You then give me an overview of your company'scapabilities, and as a result of this overview, I am interested in what you canoffer. We conclude our meeting by agreeing that you will return to your officeand prepare a proposal for me and schedule a second meeting to review yourformal recommendations at a later time.

Fast-forward to the next day: I am now meeting with your competitor. My meetingwith her is very similar to the one that I had with you; she asks a lot of thesame questions that you did, and she, too, provides me with an overview of hercompany's capabilities. As was the case with you, I am interested in a proposalfrom her. We conclude by agreeing that she will prepare a proposal for me, and Ischedule her second visit to do this, just as I did with you.

Following these initial meetings, both of you submit your proposals to me. Bothproposals are well designed, but both, as expected, are similar in their contentand recommendations. After all, the question-and-answer portions of each meetingwere very similar. You both asked similar questions, and to each of you I gavesimilar answers.

There is one notable difference, however, in the two proposals. Yourrecommendations are similar, yes, but—surprise!—your competitor'sprice is lower than yours.

Finally, my decision: After weighing both proposals and your respectiverecommendations, I elect, in this case, to buy from your lower-cost competitor.

In other words, you lost on price, right?

If you are like the vast majority of the salespeople with whom I have workedover the years, you would agree. To which I would reply that you don'tunderstand the nature of the problem you face, nor do you have an accurate graspof why you lost the business. The difference in pricing had absolutely nothingwhatsoever to do with why you lost this sale, and until you understand andaccept this point, you will never win consistently against your competition.

Why Did You Really Lose the Sale?

So it wasn't the money. What, then, cost you the opportunity?

Let's first address the issue of when it really is the money.

If I do not have adequate funds to buy from you—in other words, if Isimply don't have the financial means to pay your fee, either out of pocket orthrough financing—then yes, that is a price problem. Of course, as I amsure you realize, such a situation is almost never the case.

However, if your buyer has the financial means to buy from you—and, let'sface it, they almost always have that ability—this eliminates price as areason for choosing your competitor. Put another way, if I have the money to buyfrom you but choose not to do so, then money is not the issue that is driving mybuying decision.

So why did you lose this opportunity? You lost it because, after weighing bothoptions, I did not see enough difference in value between your recommendationand your competitor's to warrant spending the additional money. This has nothingto do with your pricing. It has everything to do with your failure todifferentiate your value proposition.

This is a problem, yes—but it is a correctable skill problem, and you cando something about it!

When selling against competition, your success depends entirely on your abilityto persuasively demonstrate that what you have, in terms of value, isclearly superior to the other options being considered. Differentiating yourrecommendations from those of your competitors will result in consistent wins;failure to accomplish this results in what we just witnessed—an "apples-to-apples" competition in which all options being considered appear to offer thesame thing. Absent a difference in value, pricing becomes a default position; itis the only point of reference available for separating one option from another.This is how the lowest-priced vendor becomes the most attractive one—notmerely because the price was so attractive. Let's set aside your desire to wincompetitive sales for a moment and look at this situation from whatmatters—the buyer's perspective. We have an obligation to the potentialcustomer to help him or her make a well-informed business decision. When adecision is made based on price, the decision is not a well-informed one, and weas sales people therefore have failed in our obligation to the potentialcustomer. We have failed to educate the buyer on our value proposition—andwe have paid a penalty for this failure.

Now that we understand the problem—and that it is our problem—whatcan we do about it? How, given the competitive nature of selling, do youseparate yourself from all other options? How do you show a buyer—clearlyand conclusively—that you are not like any of the other vendors beingconsidered? This is both a challenge and an opportunity. To begin, let's look atwhat is meant by the term value.

How Your Buyer Defines Value

When selling against competition, there are three fundamental areas in which youhave the ability to differentiate your value proposition. These are

1. You—In other words, what you personally bring to the table as avalue-added resource to your potential customer

2. Your support team—Meaning the personnel in your organizationwho provide training, technical service, and customer support following yoursale

3. Your deliverables—The product or service that you are actuallyselling

Of these three areas, the one that offers you the least opportunity fordifferentiation is what you are selling—your deliverables. In other words,from the buyer's perspective, what you offer, be it a product or a service, isthe most commoditized aspect of your value proposition. That is why it appearsat the bottom of the figure.

The buyer's point of view, right or wrong, is that, with regard to what is beingoffered, he or she can choose any one of several options and be reasonablysatisfied with the purchase. It does not matter whether this perception isaccurate or not. If this is the buyer's perception, this becomes the buyer'sreality.

Despite this point, the vast majority of salespeople will expend virtually alltheir time and effort discussing, promoting, and attempting to differentiatetheir product offering. By doing so, they completely miss the opportunity fordifferentiation. They waste their time and the buyer's time. Theyunintentionally ignore the decision factors that matter—those where realvalue differentiation can be demonstrated.

Thus the buyer's perception is that he or she can do business with any one ofseveral options and be reasonably satisfied. On such a level playing field, whatdoes the buyer value above all else from you, the seller?

The Unpaid Consultant

In 25 years of selling, the worst advice for salespeople that I have ever heardwas, ironically, the slogan of a firm that trains salespeople: "Don't be anunpaid consultant."

The logic here is that buyers will "use" you for free advice if you let them,and therefore you should refrain from providing them with such assistance.

This, in my opinion, is fundamentally flawed logic.

Buyers want to buy from people they view as experts. They wish to partner withsalespeople who understand their issues and are capable of helping them runtheir businesses better. Sellers who can sell are a dime a dozen—buthigh-value business advisors are a rare, and sought-after, commodity.

Buyers ask for such advice only from people whom they deem worthy of providingit—meaning people who are viewed as experts. In fact, the highestcompliment that a potential customer can pay you is to ask for your advice whenthey are not buying anything. When they do this—when they think enough ofyour expertise to ask for your opinion—you will own the account. They canget what you sell elsewhere, yes—but if they do that, they will not haveyou to work with any more.

The message? Strive every day to be the "unpaid consultant." Give freely of youropinion when asked for it. Seek opportunities to be the unpaid consultant.People want your opinion for a reason: They view you as an expert. Leverage thiswhenever possible. Make them depend on you, and they will swear loyalty to you.

A good example of this is the relationship that I have with my certified publicaccountant (CPA). My office is headquartered in North Carolina—a distanceof over 500 miles from her office in Ohio. Despite the distance, for over adecade I have maintained a professional relationship with her firm, although Icould easily find another local professional to provide the same basic services.In fact, there are dozens of people within a stone's throw of my office who doexactly the same kind of work.

Why, then, do I continue to send my financial data 500 miles away instead ofworking with someone locally? It certainly isn't for the basic services sheprovides: income statements, tax reporting, and bookkeeping. No, those are thecommodities of her profession. It certainly isn't her fees either; my experiencehas been that they are higher than most people with whom she competes.

I work with her—or rather, she has my unwavering loyalty—because ofwhat she doesn't charge for, but what is priceless to me nonetheless.Specifically:

• She understands my business.

• She understands how to apply her expertise to shore up one of my weaknesses(I'm a sales guy, not an accountant).

• She shows me how to use her expertise to run my business better.

In short, I can get what she does—accounting services—from virtuallyanyone, but then, if I did, I wouldn't have her to work with anymore. That onecritical factor is why I would never, ever consider switching accountants. Myrelationship with her firm has evolved into one of dependence.

This relationship was put to the test unexpectedly a couple of years ago. I hadreceived a form letter from her in the mail. She sent this announcement to allher clients, thanking us for our loyalty over the years—and politelyinforming us that owing to the demands created by the growth of her firm, shecould no longer accommodate all of us. In other words, a few of us were going tohave to go.

When I opened and read my copy of this letter, I was on the phone with herbefore the letter had a chance to float to my desk. When she answered my call, Ibegged. I pleaded. "Please, please, make me one of your keepers! I'm a simplebusiness! I don't cause problems! I pay on time! Don't do this to me! Do it tosomeone else!" In other words, I, the customer, was in a complete panic.

Fortunately, I wasn't in danger; in fact, she found my reaction amusing. Iwasn't laughing; I was desperate!

After I hung up the phone, I thought, "Wow! I'm the client, and here I ambegging one of my vendors: Please keep selling to me."

That is what perceived expertise does for you. Do you have that kind ofrelationship with your customers? Do they depend on you for advice? If they do,you never have to worry about losing their business to your competition.

Are there implications for your expertise in the competitive sellingenvironment—when selling to a new potential customer who is evaluatingseveral options? To answer this question, I'll speak to you as a business ownerwho meets regularly with people just like you—and makes buying decisionsevery day, just like your potential customers do.

When you come to my office to meet with me, I know next to nothing about you.Would I be out of line to wonder what your personal qualifications are forpartnering with me and my company? I am weighing several competitive options aspart of my buying decision. Would not your professional credentials determinehow much weight I give to the recommendations that you will be making?

Furthermore, when I first meet with you, isn't it true that all I really have towork from regarding first impressions is that you seem to be a nice person? Doyou think that being "nice" is going to be enough to persuade me to buy from youinstead of the other options?

Let's also assume here that you do, indeed, bring a wealth of experience andprofessional expertise within your industry to the table.

How, exactly, am I supposed to know that?

Now let's take a look at how to address these important points.

How to Market Your Expertise

To establish your credibility with new buyers, you must document yourprofessional credentials in the form of a biography sheet. This is asingle-page document that summarizes, on one piece of paper, what your personalqualifications are for providing value to your prospective client. It shows thatyou are worthy of the term advisor. A sample biography sheet is providedin Figure 1.2.

As you can see, this document should be written in paragraph form and in thethird person. It also—this is a requirement—must have yourphotograph. This is an item that some salespeople seem to have an issue with, solet's consider how another printed product makes good use of photography inachieving sales objectives. Consider People magazine.

People offers nothing that is going to affect the further development ofyour career. Get a life, people! Whether or not Jennifer and Angelina work outtheir differences over Brad does not affect the course of your life and successin any measurable way.

So why is People so popular? It succeeds because it focuses on two verybasic human traits: (1) We are drawn to photos, and (2) we are naturally curiousabout other people. People uses a combination of flashy photography andmeaningless gossip to draw readers. And it works! The people at Peopleare very good at what they do, and they are therefore very successful.

These two principles apply to your biography sheet as well. To illustrate, putyour thumb over the picture in the sample shown, and you will see that thedocument turns into a sheet of meaningless words. Now remove your thumb. Withthe photo, it becomes a completely different document, doesn't it? For thisreason, having your photo on the page is an absolute requirement because itmakes the person who sees it curious to read it. A color head-and-shouldersbusiness photo is best for this purpose.

The biography sheet concept also has great relevance for the other people inyour company who provide value to the potential customer. Every competitor willclaim to have outstanding people in customer service, technical support,training, accounting, etc. Well, who are those people? And more specifically,what makes your people better than those of the options that I am considering?

You already know that excellent service is a critical factor in buyingdecisions. To market your company's service capabilities, you must createbiography sheets for every person who has potential customer contact. You mustdocument everyone's expertise. You must be the one option to substantiate theclaim that all competitors will make: "We have excellent people."

Using the Biography Sheet

Now that you understand the value of documenting expertise, the next questionbecomes how to use this tool as a competitive weapon. Two extremely effectiveuses of the biography sheet are as follows:

1. Every time that you prepare a formal proposal for a client, include thebiography sheets of you and your support team in your proposal. Assuming thatyou have one, I recommend placing these in the left inside pocket of yourproposal jacket. When you go over these in your presentation, say this to theprospective client:

"If you make the decision to buy from our company, here are the people who willbe responsible for ensuring your satisfaction."

2. As a habit, every single time that you set up an appointment with a newcontact—be it at an existing account or at a prospective one—mail ore-mail your biography sheet, with a thank-you note attached, prior tothe first meeting. Example:

"Dear Fred, Thank you for the opportunity to meet you on July 18. I'm lookingforward to our meeting. Attached please find a brief summary of myqualifications for helping you with your needs."

(Continues...)

(Continues...)

Excerpted from COMPETITIVE SELLING by LANDY CHASE. Copyright © 2010 by Landy Chase. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw Hill
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0071738894
• ISBN 13: 9780071738897
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272