Your competitors don't matter!

If you are a salesperson like I am, this is what I am telling you : your competitors don't matter, stop fixating on what the competition does and does not do. Fixate instead on what your CUSTOMERS do and do not do. That's right, your competition does NOT matter.

Customers don't make purchasing decisions based on the raw number of features your product has versus the number of features your competition has. Customers make their purchasing decision base on how well your product's benefits fit their needs. That is all. How does your product matter to them?

We as salespeople often find ourselves caught in a "feature comparison" trap, largely because our customers want us there. Customers love to pit salespeople against each other. They feel it's a good way to get the best deal out of us, not necessarily the best value but most certainly the cheapest deal. The truth is, customers make purchases more because something fits their needs better and it doesn't matter one bit as to whether these needs are real or perceived. Therefore it does not matter as to how many "widgets" a product have, the only "widgets" that matter are the ones that fill THEIR needs. Our job is to relay our product's benefits to their needs.

To win this game, we need to understand our client's needs. Who are they? What do they do? Who are THEIR clients? How do they make THEIR money? What matters to them? What are their hopes and fears? Until we understand their world, we won't be able to present our product benefits in ways that make sense to them. We won't be able to describe our product in their terms.

Until then, we can't consider ourselves as sales professionals. Think about it.