Use it as a qualification opportunity

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For example, you might ask what the customer’s experience with that vendor has been so far. What have they seen or heard that they’ve liked or didn’t like? Is there a particular area of competitive differentiation they are focused on?

You might be surprised by what you learn, not only about your competition, but your customer’s perception of them. All of which can help frame your approach to responding.



2. Don’t bash. Be diplomatic
As much as you might think of your competitors as your enemy, the reality is, even your most notorious competitors have customers who love them. Your competition is worthy of your respect and bashing them diminishes your sense of professionalism. Don’t forget, your customer may have used/selected them in the past or might even know someone who works there. When it comes to talking about competitors, taking the high road is always the best call



3. Phrase the narrative in the voice of your customers (and industry experts)
When responding to competitive threats, it’s important to speak with authenticity and credibility. But as I talk about in Chapter 6 of my book (Page 176: How to Architect Your Discovery Conversations for Maximum Success), if you are new to sales, new to your company, young, or otherwise less experienced, chances are you have little personal credibility with your customers. That’s why saying things like “What I’ve found is… ” or “I think…” carry little weight (I call this the “I-phrasing” trap). Unless you’re Oprah or Bill Gates, no one cares what YOU think!

On the other hand, your customers and the collective experience of your organization carry much more weight and credibility. This means, when responding to competitive questions, it’s much more powerful to invoke that credibility in your talk track.

For example:

“Well, customers that evaluated both solutions and cambodia telegram data ultimately chose us said it was because…”
“There have been a number of customers who recently made the switch from them to us and what they told us was…”
“If you look at the reviews of both products on third-party sites like G2 and TrustRadius, one of the trends you’ll notice is…”
“Gartner just released their latest magic quadrant report for our space and what they called out was…”
Helpful video: How to speak with credibility when you have none




The truth is, your solution won’t be a good fit for every customer and it’s perfectly reasonable (and helpful for both parties) to use a competitive question as an opportunity to further qualify the deal. In these instances you can highlight very good reasons why a customer might choose one solution over the other and put the question back to the customer.