How “Know Thy Customer’s Competitor” Helped Me Create a Successful Business
Among my two key success principles have always been Know Thy Customer and Know Thy Competitor. However, while critical, that’s merely the surface layer. Understand that the competition extends beyond customers and vendors. You want to dive deeper and Know Thy Customer’s Competitor.
Why Knowing Your Customer’s Competitor Gives You an Unfair Advantage
There is a wonderfully non-intrusive way to freely obtain this information during an office visit at the customer’s location. Conducting it face-to-face is essential, as it allows you to establish a comfort zone as a foundation for the conversation.
Additionally, you can look the customer in the eye and see their facial expressions. Scan his walls or desktop for vendor plaques and awards. Along the way, there may be visible paperwork. In time, I became an expert in the science of reading upside-down paperwork.
None of which can be done over the phone. The customer could very well be multitasking while speaking with you, checking incoming emails, looking at his or her smartphone, or engaging in any other business distractions.
Knowing the customer’s competitor will tremendously strengthen your position by knowing that competitor’s weakness. You do not necessarily need to have them at that first meeting. In fact, it may be best not to mention them, whether you know the information or not.
Rarely does anything bad happen by letting the customer talk, better yet, ramble on. What a fantastic way to learn about his business. And if they are an existing customer, you can always learn new things about their business and business pressures.
Blows away any Google search!
Once you learn who keeps them up at night, your work is just beginning…
How to Ethically Research Competitors Without Undermining Trust
Go to their website to see what product lines they carry and which have special status—Silver Partner, Gold Partner, or Platinum Partner, for instance.
Products with that lofty status will prove difficult to replace; it may take years, and lives could potentially be lost. It’s best to focus on the other products they carry.
After all, especially for a new customer, all you want is the opportunity to show what makes you unique. Talking about it across the desk means nothing; proving it means everything.
Now, it’s stealth bomber time. Explore their website and look at the rest of their product lines. Is there anything that both you and they carry? I hope not if they have been a customer for thirty days or more. That one’s on you, not them.
There will likely be products similar to your company’s brands, just different vendors. This is where the fun starts!
Google those brands looking for reviews. Not the “hater” individual review, but rather a professional review from a trusted industry source. They will likely mention the pros and cons of the various products.
It’s the “cons” that you are looking for here. And hopefully, from more than one reviewer. Of course, the easy thing to do is to call the customer carrying that product and share the “good news.” Huge mistake!
Instead, step back a bit and do some research into the products your company carries. Do you carry a product similar to the reviewed one that your customer carries?
It may not be the brand itself but a certain product within that other brand. Find the one in your product line that best matches the one with the negative review. Once you have that, go to Google and look for a similar product review on your version of their product.
What you are looking for is their reaction to your product compared to what they viewed as negative or underperforming on their product.
Turning Insights Into Influence: Becoming Your Customer’s Trusted Advisor
Assuming it was a favorable review, at your next customer meeting, bring up your product or product line and get those favorable reviews. Then, without mentioning the other brand that your customer carries, remember, they may have been the ones to approve it! – bring up the unique feature(s) your product delivers, the benefits of those features, and why it is crucial to the system’s performance.
Let them be the ones who suggest “bringing one in for a test drive.” If that manufacturer has a local sales representative, arrange to have him join you. He will be thrilled that you are proactively positioning his products, likely leading to him bringing you in new customers, as you have gained his trust.
Everything is reciprocal in the art of selling.
Doing Google searches on your customer’s competitors will give you a leg up on their Achilles’ heel. Remember, never some individual review, but from a professional reviewer.
It need not be a product review; a company review may be even better! You may find the competitor is short-staffed in the service department, doesn’t honor their proposals, or is not an authorized vendor of the product they sell.
Sharing your industry knowledge will make them feel part of their own solution. You want them to figure it out; you are only leading them on that path.
Find the competitor’s Achilles’ heel and, without mentioning it to your customer, let them walk through your product’s specs and focus on what you have that counters the other product, or even the other company, only mentioning the key points. If they realize it, rather than you telling them, it’s THEIR idea. Let their ego take it from there.
And you were the hero in the room when they realized that.
Walking your customer through these situations and allowing them to discuss potential workarounds is the first step to establishing you as a trusted advisor. That TA position is the first step along your journey to being indispensable to that customer.
Sales-wise, indispensable is sacred holy status with the customer and demands consistency and excellence.
Doing your homework is a lost art in this age of instant technology. Have it in you?
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