Know your competition!

If you want to be a highly effective sales person, you really should have a deep understanding of your products, services, delivery mechanisms and the value proposition your company brings to the table. You should be comfortable and confident speaking about any and all of these things.

I contend that knowing your competition is just as important. Many companies today do not take the time to look at what the competition is doing. Years ago, when I worked in retail, every morning one of us was tasked with going through the local news papers to cut out the adds from competing retailers and post them on a large cork board. Every employee, not just the sales people, was expected to review this board by 10:00 in the morning. If a customer asked about a product on our shelves that we knew was on sale 3 blocks away, we could avoid losing the sale. If we didn’t have that product, we could position one of ours effectively against it. Knowledge is empowering. I know many retailers today and very few of them do this.

A decade later, as a rep for Toshiba, I would spend considerable time getting to know every notebook we sold. I knew all of their key features, what processors they used, hard drive sizes, memory options and networking capabilities. I also knew the same things about competing products. It was something that really separated me from many of the other reps.

A very good friend of mine worked for our main competitor at the time. He too knew his products very well and both of us knew each others products. One day, we both showed up at a reseller location at the same time. We were both there to introduce a new product. The reseller had inadvertently booked us both at the same time. As we both had a very solid relationship with this reseller, we decided to do something unique. He took my new product and I took his. We both presented each others products, their new features and strengths. We did not bash each other. We wanted to stress that product knowledge was important, and, we wanted to have fun and for our reseller to have fun. This is not something we ever did again. It could only happen that day and with that particular reseller. I don’t recommend you do this as no doubt your superiors would likely frown on it! However, you could role play with your own people. It’s a great exercise. I only tell this story to make a point which is that to be able to do this, you must know your competition very well.

How well do you know yours?

Here are some ideas to help you increase your knowledge in this area.

• Effective marketing departments usually produce a chart comparing your latest products and services against the competition. Be sure you read these and know where to find them at a moments notice.

• What if your company does not produce these types of documents? Most industry specific publications, magazines and consumer reports often have product reviews and some publish their own competitive charts. You can find a lot of this on the internet or at your local book stores.

• Ask your customer. If your customer also purchases competing products, ask them how well they are being serviced and what they see as the main value being offered by your competition.

• Ask your competitors and resellers. If you have friends who work for your competition or for resellers that handle their products, talk to them and listen closely to what they say.

• Re-read the second paragraph of this article and think about how you could apply something like this in your organization.

© Gil Namur, 2009