Time for a short quiz.

Raise your hand if you enjoy it when politicians tell you how great their party is by trashing the policies of the others.

Thought so.

You don’t like hearing others do it; so what makes you think your prospects want to hear it from you about your competitors?

Here’s another question.

What goes through your mind when you hear politicians trash their opponents? Do you ever say to yourself, “You’re all alike”? That’s what your prospects are thinking when you do it.

And do you know what? People usually don’t buy because one supplier is a lesser of evils. They only buy from the one who can solve their problem. If your USP is, or appears to be, “We’re solid gold compared to the cardboard cut-outs that we compete with,” then you won’t sell anything.

Why? Because you haven’t proved to them you are 24 carats. Duh.

How often have you decided not to buy anything because none of the choices were good?

The truth is that if the primary difference - the one that you constantly hammer about between you and your competitors - is seen by your prospects as either a bad choice or a worse one, then they probably won’t buy from either of you.

That means that you have to give them good reasons from the outset as to why they should buy from you.

How do you do that?

By concentrating on the right thing. The right thing is how you can solve their problem. It’s not the weaknesses of your competitors.

What is your prospect looking for?

Value.

The more closely your solution fits the problem, the more valuable it is. It’s your job to make sure your prospects grasp that. And you’ll know that you’ve done your job when they give you buying signals. Until that happens, however, the perceived value of your solution is inadequate. So, instead of showing how insecure you are with your products - and that’s exactly how it looks - what should you say?

How do you build the value of your offer without denigrating someone else’s?

The first thing is that you make sure that you understand the problem.

No matter how elegant your solution is, if it isn’t what prospects need or want - and they should know - then nothing else matters. How do you get a greater knowledge of the problem? By asking good questions. Start with general ones and then move to more specific ones for clarification.

The second is to periodically summarise what you’ve been told.

This will prove to your prospects that you’ve been listening. That’s really important, because a lot of people - including those in sales - give the appearance of listening, when in reality they’re simply waiting for the opportunity to take over the conversation. You can’t talk and listen at the same time.

The third thing is to avoid talking about your competitors at all.

Wouldn’t it be great if when politicians were asked a question, they would simply say, “We’re going to do this” instead of “We’re going to do this instead of that which that weak-kneed, spineless group of wannabes opposite are suggesting”?

If your prospects refer to your competitors, then you’ll have to make a judgement about whether it’s worth responding to their comments or not; but you want to avoid making direct comparisons. When you do that, then it elevates the importance of their solutions to yours. Instead, for example, you might ask your prospects why they mentioned them at all.

You have to be nice about it, of course, but it could be that they just want to see how you’ll react; whether or not you seemed threatened by it or wrong-footed. Don’t fall for it.

If it seems to be relevant, then ask your prospects to tell you why. Don’t volunteer anything and don’t defend yourself against what is said. At best, it’s hearsay, unless they have firsthand knowledge of it. At worst, you could end up arguing. And if that happens, then you might as well pack-up and go home.

A better approach, in the fourth place, is to make sure that your sales call is so slick that it addresses the strengths - not the weaknesses - of your competitors, without mentioning them by name or even alluding to them, and then frames your solution as stronger still.

For example, you could say that “some older technologies do X, but our cutting edge product does Y. It’s better because . . .”

Think about Apple.

Do you ever hear them talk about Microsoft?

Of course not. As far as Apple is concerned, they are the best, and so there’s no reason to acknowledge, never mind compare themselves with anyone else.

Or how about Google.

You know there are thousands of search engines, but unless you search on that term, then you’d never know. And watch a Google video about what they’re rolling out, and you could be forgiven for thinking that they were the only company across a wide range of industries. That’s what you have to do.

Your prospects need to be so captivated by you that it seems silly to mention anyone else. You want to take and hold the high ground. When you bad-mouth your competitors, then you lose that ability. Then you really are like everyone else.

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