Don’t Knock the Competition [Academy]

Don’t Knock the Competition?

The Golden Rule Of Selling states Never Talk Bad About Competitors.

Regardless of how much a prospect or customer knocks competitors, you can’t “pile on” and knock them too.  They’re allowed to do it, you’re not, especially if the company they’re putting down is one they also buying from. For example, if your wife starts talking bad about her own relatives, you do NOT have the right to jump in the fray and say negative things about them too. That will get you into trouble. 

When sales reps aren’t able to sell themselves and their own company values, it can be tempting to revert to breaking the Golden Rule. But it never works and here’s why. The value of the sales rep takes a nose-dive in customers’ minds the minute the rep starts “knocking” the competition.

This is not only Sales 101,  it’s also common sense.   

A friend and I recently went to a restaurant in a neighboring town and to my surprise, our waiter was a young man who had been working at a great restaurant in the town I live in for more seven years. He left when the restaurant was sold and became under new management. He immediately recognized me and I asked him why he left. He said the new owners were doing a really poor job and all of the staff he had worked with was leaving. He said the food had really gone to the dogs too. I listened as he carried on about how bad it was. Little did he know I had eaten there several times since the new owners took it over and I also know the new manager of the restaurant personally. The food was at least as good or maybe even better than before and the service was great. Many of the old faces were still there. This guy is a great waiter, but my perception of him dropped tremendously as he waxed on about how bad his former place of business was. Regardless of how he felt about the change, he should have said, I left to get a change of scenery and I understand they’re doing very well. End of story.

There are three things that occur in a customer’s mind the minute a reps starts banging on the competition. 

First, the grower discovers the seller is afraid of them.  If he wasn’t afraid of them, he would avoid the topic by making a positive comment about the competitor then move on.  For example the grower might say, “I buy all of my seed from Brand X and I’m happy with them.”  The seller must remember the Golden Rule and say, “They do a nice job, don’t they.”  Now, that company may NOT be doing a nice job, but the farmer knows whether they do or not and is the only one who can criticize them. At that point the seller is free to continue selling his own values, having shown no fear of the competitor.  This ALWAYS works.

Second, when reps knock a competitor, the grower immediately feels insulted.  Any time you attack a competitor that the grower has been doing business with, you’ve told the grower how stupid he is for making that decision. That’s sales suicide with that grower. 

And third, when you slam your competition, whatever level of trust the grower had for you at that point leaves.  People don’t trust those who degrade others because they wonder whether you will talk about them the same way at some point in time.

They know people who degrade others can’t be trusted.  

After all of these years, it’s hard to believe we still need to talk about the Golden Rule. But since we are, the next time you run into your competitor who loves to spread lies and rumors about you and your company, just use this great old line on them.  “Hey John Doe, I’ll make a deal with you.  If you stop telling lies about me, I’ll stop telling the truth about you!”

Happy Selling, I’m Rod Osthus