As I’ve traveled around the country over the past several years working with companies and their salespeople, I’ve been amazed to find that they do not know, and cannot articulate, their competitive advantage! How can companies and their salespeople expect prospects and customers to give their time and attention if they do not understand, clearly and concisely, what that company can do for them that no one else can do? That’s what I call selling in the pit.

Companies and salespeople who don’t understand their competitive advantage are all in a deep pit saying things like, “Our product is better quality,” or, “Our service is better,” or, “I’m my company’s competitive advantage.” Even if the salesperson is the company’s competitive advantage, they won’t convince their customers just by saying so because many of their competitors will be saying the exact same thing! That’s selling in the pit! To get out of the pit, salespeople have to define quality. They have to show the prospect what outstanding service looks like and how their service differs from the competition.

In a moment, I’ll show you how to determine your competitive advantage, but first let’s talk about how you can demonstrate your competitive advantage from the very first moment you are introduced. Suppose someone walks up to you at a business conference, introduces herself, and asks you what you do for a living. Exactly what would you say?

Did you have any trouble? Did you stumble? Do you know what sets you apart from your competitors? If this was hard for you, you’re not alone. If you were to ask the average car, computer, or caviar salesperson what they do for a living, they’ll probably say, “I sell cars, computers, or caviar.” But what does every other car, computer, or caviar salesperson say? Exactly the same thing!

So what should salespeople who understand their competitive advantage say? How about this for the car salesperson? “My name is Mike and I work with Competitive Motors. I’ve found that there is a lot of confusion in the automotive market today because there have been over 150 new models introduced in just the past three years. I’ve developed a computer book that profiles everything the buyer wants in a car and, in less than five minutes, identifies the models most likely to fit their needs.”

Your Statement of Competitive Advantage

Mike has given his prospect a statement of competitive advantage. It has four components:

-Your name
-Your company
-A statement about a problem in your market
-How you and your product solve that problem

The statement of competitive advantage is a maximum 30-second statement of what differentiates you in the marketplace.

Here’s another example. “My name is Marlene and I work with a company called ‘The Prescription for Doctors.’ Physicians today are being pressured by insurers, employers, and patients to cut health care costs. Yet overhead costs for physicians are constantly rising. We provide a service that allows the physician to spend more time with patients and cut overhead costs at the same time, resulting in better quality care at a lower cost. It’s just what the doctor ordered!”

Here’s one last example. “My name is Beth. It’s nice to meet you. I’m with a company called ‘The Greatest Advertising Agency in the World.’ I’ve discovered that almost every successful product has either been the first entry in its category or it has been able to create a new category in the mind of its customers. What we do is help companies who are launching new products or having trouble with old ones ensure that their product is positioned to win!”

That really does set you apart from the competition. And it makes you sound like a polished expert right from the start. But how do you determine exactly what your competitive advantage is? The best way to determine your competitive advantage is to break down the components of your product or service into four distinct categories: competitive uniqueness, competitive advantages, competitive parities, and competitive disadvantages. Let’s look at each one individually.

Competitive uniqueness: “What can I do for my customers that no one else can do? What can I offer that no one else can offer?”

Competitive advantages: “What can I do for my customer that my competitor can also do, but I can do it better and I can prove it?”

Competitive parity: “Objectively speaking, my competitors and I are the same here—no real differentiation.”

Competitive disadvantages: When you honestly answer the question: “Where does the competition have an advantage over me?”

You may want to do your analysis by market segment, by competitor, by product, or include all of them, but knowing your competitive position will quickly get you out of the pit and on your customer’s wavelength.

An example of competitive uniqueness exists if a pharmaceutical company receives FDA approval to sell a new drug. Since no one else has the drug, this company now has a competitive uniqueness with this drug.

An example of a competitive advantage might be where two companies market the same drug, but one is a large well-known company and the other is a small relatively unknown company. Even though both are selling essentially the same product, the larger company has an advantage because it’s well known and people ask for the drug by its company name because of its wide name recognition. If no real competitive advantage exists in your product, try to focus on your company reputation, your excellent service, your responsiveness, and reliability or any other factors than can positively differentiate you from your competition.

Next let’s look at competitive parity—what things are the same between the competition and us? That is, what do you have that is exactly like what the competition has but is still important to the customer? Birth control pills are a good example. Several ethical drug companies make different formulations, but all with similar records for preventing pregnancy. This is competitive parity.

And finally, competitive disadvantages—what specific disadvantages do your product or service possess? That is, what does the competition do better than you do? Your drug may have more side effects than the competitor’s. That’s a competitive disadvantage.

In the examples I’ve just given, we were talking about the whole product as being unique or the same. But what do you do if you have a product where some features may be unique, some may be advantages, some may be the same, and some may be disadvantages?

Say, for example, that you are selling a fax machine that uses plain paper—that’s parity, because others do too. But maybe yours is the only one that will interface with phone, computer, or car telephone—that’s uniqueness. Yours also has the highest resolution available, that’s an advantage, 300-number memory, another advantage, but it will not do broadcasting and polling, that’s a disadvantage.

Here’s an example in a service business. Federal Express™ will get a package delivered overnight, but so will other companies. That’s parity. But FedEx has a provable better track record, an advantage, and they can tell you in real time, exactly where your package is, that’s a uniqueness (Of course, in the rapidly changing world of service businesses, some of these benefits may have changed from advantage to parity, or vice versa, by the time you read this).

I can’t stress enough the importance of doing this analysis and knowing your competitive advantage. By doing this analysis you’ll be in a position to help your customers distinguish between you and your competition. Once they see your uniqueness and advantages, it will be easier for them to make a decision in your favor. In order to discover your competitive advantage, you may have to do some intelligence gathering:

-talk to your customers
-talk to other salespeople
-watch the local newspapers
-attend tradeshows
-talk to your customers’ suppliers
-build a file of your competitor’s marketing and product information
-do a debriefing when you lose a customer to a competitor
-use a clipping service to gather information on competitors or on major prospects
-obtain annual and quarterly reports of your competitors and prospective customers
-watch the market trends in your industry and in your customers’ industries
-become the expert on your product or service and how it can help your customers

Avoiding Price Focus

How many times have you been in a selling situation where the customer’s sole focus was on price? Anytime your customers can’t tell the difference between your product or service and your competitor’s, they will buy on price. You must differentiate your company, your product, your quality, your service, and yourself if you want the customer to stop focusing on price and start seeing you as a partner and not just as a supplier. You’ve got to show customers how you are different.

I’m sure you can see now why it’s so important to know what you have to offer that’s unique or different. But you may be wondering what you’ll do with that information once you have it. How will you get the information across to the customer?

You’re going to use this information in every step of the sale. Your entire sales effort will be built around your competitive strengths. When you are targeting your market, you’ll be looking for those clients whose needs are most likely to match your uniqueness and advantages. When you contact clients, you’ll open the conversation by letting them know what you can do for them that no one else can do. During the information-gathering phase, you’ll be asking questions that will uncover customer needs in the areas where you have uniqueness and advantages. When you are collaborating with your customer on options and solutions, you’ll keep your customer focused on your uniqueness and advantages and show your customers how they match their needs. During the commitment phase, you’ll be summarizing all of the competitive advantages that your product has to offer, and during the assuring satisfaction phase, you’ll be measuring how well your uniqueness and advantages are serving your customer.

Let’s summarize the two powerful strategies I’ve talked about that will give you The Competitive Advantage. First, know your competitive advantages and uniqueness, and second, be able to articulate them clearly to your prospective customers in thirty seconds or less. This is your powerful opening to your targeted prospects—that all-important first impression that sets you apart from your competition and clearly establishes your competitive advantage in the eyes of your customers.

Dr. Tony Alessandra, PhD, CSP, CPAE
Building Customers, Relationships, and the Bottom Line

Alessandra helps companies achieve market dominance through specific strategies designed to outmarket, outsell, and outservice the competition. Alessandra has a street-wise, college-smart perspective on business, having realized success as former a graduate professor of marketing, entrepreneur, business author and keynote speaker. He earned his BBA, MBA and PhD, all in Marketing, from the University of Notre Dame, the University of Connecticut, and Georgia State University, respectively.

Alessandra is president of AssessmentBusinessCenter.com, a company that offers online 360º assessments; Chairman of BrainX.com, a company that created the first Online Learning Mastery System™; and is the founding partner of Platinum Rule Group, a company that provides corporate training and consulting based on The Platinum Rule®.

This article comes from 49 Marketing Secrets (THAT WORK) to Grow Sales http://www.49marketingsecrets.com/