Your Biggest Competitor is Not Who You Think
If I asked you to tell me who your biggest competitor is, what would you say? Is it the shop across the street? Is it the big-named, 800-pound gorilla in the marketplace? Regardless of how you answered, you’d likely be wrong.
Your biggest competitor is neither of those and likely none of the other options you’ve come up with over the past few moments while thinking about the answer. Your biggest competitor is your own prospect’s status quo.
I credit Anthony Iannarino with teaching me that. Comically, he and I together couldn’t figure out where he worded the concept so succinctly, but I offer you these two blog posts as Exhibit A and Exhibit B.
You can differentiate yourself against the competitors in your marketplace, but unless you can identify a good reason for your prospect to do anything at all, you’re not going to have much luck creating opportunities.
Your urgency is not going to be matched by your buyer
Yes I know, you have a great solution. Yes I know, you’ve got a number to hit this month. Still, neither of those statements shed any light on why your prospect needs to do anything with you in the next few days, let alone why they should give you money.
Realize that a very small percentage of the people you reach out to are ready to buy right now. More often than not, you need to create context for them to understand why your service is even valuable. They need the right lens in which to recognize why what you’re selling is meaningful.
Most of your prospects are quite content with where they are. Their situation may not be optimal, but it’s one they know and they’re managing just fine. It’s safe. Any move, even one that would clearly lead to a better outcome, can feel like a threat. You need to neutralize that threat, remove as much potential risk as possible, and show them the benefits of making a change.
Once you can make a sound business case for change, you might be able to get them to admit that their situation is worth exploring. This is where you really need to start. If you overlook this first step, you create unnecessary sticking points and a lot of false negatives because you’re asking for too much too soon. You end up leaving a lot of opportunities on the table while making others take way longer than they should, which is particularly ironic because you’re in such a hurry.
Stick around or move on?
When you have unreasonable expectations about how many people should be ready to buy right now, you rule out a lot of great opportunities. You’re probably moving on from and looking past prospects that you’d otherwise be able to help if you were only patient enough.
There is real danger in only seeking out the low hanging fruit in your marketplace. You lower your expectations. You forget that your best, most profitable customers are often the ones you had to work the hardest to win. That usually means these are the easiest customers to lose, too. You don’t want to get caught in this cycle.
Before long, you find yourself settling for anybody who is willing to talk to you. This is almost always far cry from what anyone in your company would consider an ideal customer.
You don’t do this on purpose. It’s just what happens when you don’t set a high enough standard for yourself and you don’t clear the bar of what it means to be a professional seller.
The real value of a robust pipeline
You cannot speed up someone’s buying process. You can only avoid slowing down your own sales process. It’s not that complicated, though most sellers fail to answer the three simple questions that make it possible.
Even when the next step is not clear, or when it’s clear that the deal won’t close when you want it to, there’s still no reason to abandon it if the prospect is a good fit. Deals always close as soon as they can, regardless of your preferred calendar.
The remedy for these issues is to work more deals. You may be tired of hearing that, but it’s the best advice I can give you. When there are more opportunities to close, the urgency surrounding any of them is reduced dramatically.
A funny thing happens: you start closing deals routinely, regardless of when they were opened, and it’s one of the most liberating feelings you can experience as a salesperson. When you remove that artificial sense of urgency, you can do your best work.
I’ve never seen a rep with a strong pipeline and an understanding of their sales process not hit their number. When you bind your opportunities to time, you choke off that pipeline before it can even get going. Stop managing the length of your sales cycle, and focus on more sales cycles.
My free, 30-minute live training Wednesday afternoon will help you overcome your prospect’s status quo. Hope you’ll be there.
You’re also invited to join the conversation in the Rethink The Way You Sell Community.
Jeff Bajorek
Real. Authentic. Experience.
There’s a big difference between knowing how to sell and being able to. Jeff Bajorek spent over a decade in the field as a top performer. He’s been in your shoes. He knows what it will take. He can help you succeed.
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