Selling into the Competitive Maelstrom

Little doubt exists in the mind of most business people that
the days in which we live are perhaps the most turbulent of any in recent
memory.  Truth is, any time there is a
downturn in the amount of business activity available in any given market,
competition increases as suppliers of goods and services vie for a greater slice
of a shrinking pie.   Growing your
business in a time of general economic growth is not rocket science; in some
respects one need only be sensitive to the needs of the market in terms of
pricing and availability and to not do anything grotesquely stupid.  Certainly a modicum of business sense is required
and a reasonable amount of knowledge, but given the success of some of your
competition, you know that it is by no means necessary that those be
inexhaustible. 

A change in the economy is a sea change and as a result, a
change in the tactics of the successful. 
There are different disciplines that must come into play and more
careful utilization of scarce resources. 
Paying attention to the differences will keep you the seaworthy.  Ignoring those differences will send you to
the bottom. 

Among the most significant of the changes that needs to
occur is the repositioning of the sales expertise in your organization.  If one looks back at the sales training
materials from the late 1960s through the end of the century, there were
assumptions made that don’t hold water anymore, especially in a time of
increasing competition. 

Among them was the assumption that you always had more
information about your product or service than your customer did.  It was not until the Internet became the
incredible informational resource it is that information about your product or
service offerings became available to anyone with a computer.  Prior to that, hours of research was required
to provide even a rudimentary understanding of technical issues.  Now, the depth of information available in
highly readable summary form on virtually any subject is staggering.  To test that premise, you non-astronomers
should Google search the term “Sidereal Time” and you will find everything from
highly technical papers to very simple explanations of how it differs from
Solar Time; some 271,000 in all.  In
fact, we now have turned “Google” into a verb. 
  Any of your customers can do
basic research into what you sell in a few minutes.  Extensive research takes much longer – maybe
a few hours.  Treating your customer like
you are the end-all-be-all is a fatal flaw as competition increases.

Sales people were trained to develop catchy comebacks for
objections that left the customer with little option but to agree.  Maneuvering people into buying is always
dicey but it is deadly if competition is on the rise.  Today’s buyer has an incredible array of
buying options from the local competition to someone half a world away.  He has little patience for the manipulative;
he doesn’t need any since you can easily be shown the door and there are dozens
if not hundreds right behind you.  All
the old school ideas that were supported by a relatively ignorant buyer and an
abundant market are worse than obsolete – they are counter-productive to your
survival in a more competitive world.

Repositioning your sales expertise means several
things.  It means that you are
transparently competent in your products or services.  By that we mean that your expertise covers not
only the obvious issues but that it goes well beyond.  If your knowledge of your offerings is not
greater than the average buyer can find in an hour online, you are sadly
lacking.  The “transparent” aspect refers
to being willing to engage your customer in an open and non-defensive dialog
about the things you know and may not know about what you sell.  The great availability of information to your
customer does not automatically indicate its accuracy.  Your customer might have come across
information that is simply wrong and your job is to correct the misapprehension.  This must be done in a respectful and
competent manner that leaves the customer room to adjust to a better
understanding.  A rueful laugh, followed
by you rolling your eyes at what a customer sees as a legitimate question is an
invitation to the exits.  Salespeople who
do not have this level of competence or interpersonal skill need not
apply.  

It also means that you are willing to invest your efforts in
finding the correct solution for your customer and presenting it in a way that
does not manipulate, intimidate, cajole or marginalize him.  With so many options available, why put up
with a disrespectful salesperson?  The
customer can usually find more or less the same thing you offer at more or less
the same price and more or less the same delivery schedule with little more
than a couple of phone calls.  Don’t give
him a reason to go looking.

All the advantages shift to the buyer when a market is
tight.  The buyer has most of the options
and all of the controls.  Assuming that
there is some way to dominate your customer is foolish unless you effectively
have a monopoly.  Even then, a monopoly
is usually an invitation for your competitor to look at your “meat and
potatoes” business as the best way to expand theirs.  In reality, the advantage is on the buyer’s
side all the time; it just appears to shift more so during times of economic
slowdown as competition increases.

In order to successfully deal with the competitive maelstrom
that a tightening economy brings, you simply have to be better across the board
than every one of those that wants to displace you.  There is no oar resting in business.  A slowing economic pace means not just that
you engage in more activity but that activity must also be of higher
quality.  Pull harder and pull more and
no whining allowed.  A recent
conversation with a colleague in the window fabrication business expressed this
problem nicely.  Despite the fact that
they had invested millions in PVC extrusion equipment, the domestic PVC resin
supplier lost 100% of the business to a competitor from China.  The Chinese supplier could deliver finished
window profile extrusion CIF to the window fabrication plant in British
Columbia for less than the cost of just the resin purchased from a domestic
source.  Total research time: 4 hours
online.  That is reality.  That is what you are facing. 

Unless you are offering the right solutions delivered on
time and under budget, you are vulnerable in a highly competitive
marketplace.  Since it looks as though we
will be in such a market for a long, long time, now is the time to make sure
your selling expertise is positioned for maximum results.