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Daily Sales Tip: Your Number One Competitor

Ask salespeople to describe their number one competitor, and they'll usually come up with price-cutters or competitors who are trying to steal their best customers.

While this type of competition can be serious and annoying, it doesn't meet the criteria of a number one competitor.

The real number one may have nothing to do with outside sales competition.

The real number one competitor is the status quo. It's the mental pattern that exists in your prospect's mind, the one that says, "It makes sense for me to buy," or "It makes sense for me to do nothing. I really prefer not to buy."

Whatever the prospect is doing right now, it's what makes sense to him or her and that's all that really matters.

It's important to find ways to change the status quo, to alter the prospect's thinking. And your questions should be focused on what the prospect is actually doing right now.

Ask in terms of the past, the present and the future, then vary the questioning to include the how and the why. You may get a view of what the customer is doing now.

Buying decisions are usually made slowly -- even over extended periods.

Your goal should be to establish in the customer's mind why it's smart to do business with you and break or stop the status quo.

Source: Adapted from The #1 Sales Team, by sales trainer/author Stephan Schiffman.

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