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YOUR Strengths and Weaknesses
This month we continue our conversation about creating
proactive services differentiators. As we've established,
you MUST know how and why YOU are better than the competition
and show the prospect these differences. The key is
defining your strengths and weaknesses. A great way
to illustrate this is to think of Michael Jordan. Yes,
that Michael Jordan. He is the perfect Wedge.
Every time Michael Jordan played a game, he knew exactly who was going to be guarding the basket. He consistently sought out his competition's strengths and weaknesses and then consciously exploited the weaknesses. He knew how the match-ups would come out. He made sure he had the advantage, and as a result, he won often.
No one plays the sales game to LOSE. And, where there is an incumbent vendor, the incumbent only has to tie, and can even lose by a little bit to keep the account. All because he has the relationship with the prospect and you don’t. To have a chance at winning, you have to pit your strength against his weakness. That’s the only match-up where you have the advantage. Don’t take the incumbent head on – find out what his weaknesses are and exploit them.
* Suppose you are a financial advisor for a moment. You
meet with a prospect and mention that with your firm,
clients have online access to all their accounts plus
the ability to trade online. But that’s standard these
days, so basically you’ve just pitched the same service
as everyone else. Your strength vs. the incumbent’s strength
– it’s a wash. You lose because there’s no reason for
the prospect to make a change.
* Maybe you promote the 24/7 access to your Customer Care Center, only to find out that with the incumbent’s firm, the prospect is considered a “prime” account and isn’t shuffled off to the service center. Your weakness vs. his strength. You lose again, and the prospect is left wondering why you even brought it up.
To bust the prospect/incumbent relationship and win the engagement, you must have a strength to match against the incumbent’s weakness. That’s the only situation where you have an advantage. So before you meet with a prospect, it’s vital that you know how you stack up against the competition. You need to be prepared to focus your conversation on those areas where you and your company are strong and the competition is weak. It looks like this:
| Weakness | Strength | You lose |
| Strength | Strength | It's a Wash! You lose |
| Strength | Weakness | Your advantage |
Many salespeople assume that if they offer "the same service at a better price" they will win. But, even if you match the incumbent feature for feature, service for service, and offer a better price - you’ll still lose 99% of the time. You’ll lose because the incumbent will always have something you don’t: a relationship with the prospect.
Let The Wedge Group help you identify your strengths and show you techniques for learning about the competition's weaknesses. Once identified, you can engage prospects with more confidence, a better 'pitch', get the competition FIRED, and win more business. Now, Go out, stop selling and start winning!
Randy Schwantz
President & CEO
The Wedge Group
If you have any comments, questions, or reminder ideas,
please don't hesitate to Let
Us Know! Also, if you know anyone who would like to
receive a copy of The Wedge Report, please forward
them this copy and suggest they subscribe
online.
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