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Who Are Your Competitors?

by Tim Connor    

To illustrate my point, let me give you an example.

Let's say that you sell wigits. Your prospect can use more or better wigits.

On Monday, you present the features and benefits of your wigits to a new prospect. The prospect tells you they will consider purchasing them from you, but they need some time to consider your proposal.

On Tuesday, another salesperson who sells a totally unrelated product, gives your prospect a presentation on the advantages of a new communication network system for their organization. No competition, right? Wrong! Although both of you are selling a completely different product, you are both trying to get a share of the prospect's available dollars that they have to spend this year on a variety of products and services. The prospect calls you back on Friday saying he has decided to purchase the communication program and can't order your wigits until next year. Lost sale. A direct competitor? NO. You both were trying to some of the available financial resources of this prospect. He wanted and needed both your wigits and the communication program, but couldn't afford both now. An indirect competitor? YES.

Apparently the communication salesperson did a better job of convincing the prospect that the purchase of the communication system was more important than buying your wigits. He might not even have known the prospect was considering buying wigits, and you might not have known he was considering buying the communication system.

Therefore, to sell successfully, you need to be better than every other salesperson who is trying to get some of your prospect's available cash – even though you don't know who they are or what they are trying to sell. Tough job? Not really. All you have to do is have better sales skills.

So, who are your competitors? Let go of the attitude that they are only companies who sell exactly what you sell.


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Tim Connor, CSP, is a professional speaker and expert in the fields of management, sales, team building, and customer service. He's the author of 19 books and can be reached at 704-895-1230, speaker@bellsouth.net or www.timconnor.com.