Discovering the “Secrets” to Beat Your Toughest Competitors

In my previous post, I drew an analogy of how winning Major League Baseball teams are similar to successful companies in the business world and I referenced my beloved Chicago Cubs as an example. The old adage, “the players and not the coach win ballgames” is true but the coaching staff is critical in developing a winning game plan (strategy) and then using proven tactics on game day to beat the opposing team. For example, some players hit better against certain pitchers, so the manager usually inserts that player, whether he is a starter or backup, in the lineup when that pitcher is scheduled to pitch. On the flipside, some pitchers perform better or worse against certain teams, so again, the manager may alter his starting rotation to be more competitive. If the opposing catcher is weak throwing out base stealers, the manager will run more often. Smart managers platoon their players to give starters rest and provide the bench with more playing time. Defensive changes and the effective use of pinch hitters late in the game are commonplace…its all about strategy and tactics that differentiates winning managers from the also rans. After losing 10 of their first 16 games this season, the Cubs are doing better. It appears, after re-analyzing his team and the competition, Cubs’ skipper Lou Piniella may have discovered some “secrets” to get his team back on track.

Does your sales team continually lose to the same competitor(s) time and time again but you don’t know why? Are your sales teams “surprised” by competitive tactics they encounter in a sales situation? Why do some of your Account Executives have great success against a particular competitor whereas other Sales Reps can’t seem to win deals against them? Recently, I interviewed a successful software salesperson assigned to the Civilian Sector of the US Federal government. She runs into the same Fortune 100 competitor on every major deal. The competitor has a much greater presence in the Fed, a broader product line, they have strong C-Level relationships and signed an Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) with the client that is hard to beat on price. She did her homework to better understand what Sales Strategies and Tactics to expect from them based upon intelligence gathered by her company’s competitive team. She told me “I now know the secret and every time I compete against them I use it and never lose!” Her secret…based upon intelligence collected on a number of recent Win Reviews, it became obvious that this competitor performs poorly in Proofs-of Concept (POC) and they try to avoid them. As a result, she always suggests the prospect do a head-to-head POC (aka the “put up or shut up” tactic) to demonstrate her company’s products are better suited to meet the customer’s needs. Another Sales Rep, assigned to the UK Financial Services Vertical, used a bolder approach with one of his key accounts. Based upon his understanding of a different competitor’s Sales Strategies and Tactics, he shared this information directly with his prospect! He knew his company’s products were superior to the competition and the competitor relied heavily on high-priced services to make their products work, so he predicted exactly what the competitor would do every step of the way throughout the sales cycle. His prospect now viewed him as a trusted advisor. He educated the decision maker on the shortcomings of the competitor’s products, their reliance on costly professional services which extends time-to-value and what “sales tricks” to expect from them to cover-up their product deficiencies. His competitive “coaching” was dead on and it helped him close a multi-million dollar deal with more business to come in the future.

Understanding your competitors’ Sales Strategies and Tactics is critical in winning deals. In the two examples illustrated above, both Account Executives benefited from intelligence gathered by the competitive team in Win-Loss interviews. These interviews identify predictable trends in competitive behavior which provided both of them with a better understanding of what to expect from the competitor and how to proactively set their own “competitive landmines” to win the business. A structured and on-going Win-Loss program should be an essential component of your go-to-market strategy…does your company have it in their competitive toolkit to help your sales teams win more business?