Are You Too Hung Up With Your Competition?

Published on March 2, 2004

As a leader, you must help develop the strategy of how you are going to attack your market. People are too often consumed with what their competition is doing. It’s one thing to take your competition into account. It’s quite another thing to try and emulate your competition.

If your competition has gained the high road with a certain product or service, then why would you create a strategy that matches what they are doing? They already are doing it. They have more experience doing it. And they probably are the best ones doing it. Successful leaders do not try and duplicate their competitors efforts. They strive to push the envelope and create a new benchmark of success that forces the competition to now chase them.

I refer again to Rodger Ekstrom, a sales executive who knows how to win. You already read about his feat in capturing greater market share with an existing customer in this month’s sales tip. Now let me tell you how he recaptured the business of a key account. This account is a large player in his market and they lost the business for various reasons. After taking The Titan Principle® training, he realized that every time he tried to get back in the door, he led with features that basically failed to motivate the buyer to listen.

Recently, he called and asked for a meeting to assess their challenges. Instead of trying to match his competition price for price, he found out was missing for the customer and the challenges they were facing. This information empowered him to come up with a solution that would provide outcomes for the customer they were not getting from their current vendor. End result: They recaptured the business. The customer mentioned how appreciative they were that Rodger and his team came in with an open mind, discussed their problems and came up with solutions they were in dire need of.

The only reason the competition failed to keep the business is they never stayed on top of their customers issues. Rodger was allowed to come in, push the envelope, and establish a new benchmark of success that separated him from the competition. If Rodger only worried about matching his competition, he would not have succeeded.

Stop trying to match your competition! It is a game that is hard to win. Move ahead of your competition by finding out what’s missing for the customer and provide the appropriate solution. Be a leader in the eyes of your customer and help them reach their goals.

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