Your #1 Competitor…

Recently I’ve noticed reps and companies spending a lot of time worrying about their competition and trying to figure out what they’re doing or how to defend against them, etc.

Recently I’ve noticed reps and companies spending a lot of time worrying about their competition and trying to figure out what they’re doing or how to defend against them, etc. I don’t know why but I’ve never really worried too much about competition. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t ignore competition but I find focusing on them tends to take me away from what I should be focusing on (the customer), which is ultimately what loses the deal for me.

In my experience the number one competitor any of us have is ourselves. We tend to be our own worst enemies, especially in Sales. We play defense far more often than we play offense. We react more than we recommend. We focus on the smaller details compared to the bigger picture. We limit ourselves purely by our mindset.

Here’s an example. A while back I was at an SKO event for a client who was trying to move upstream into the Enterprise space. The VP got up on stage and talked about one of the keys to getting that $1M POs is to…wait for it…propose them. He was acutely aware that his sales team was not comfortable or confident in putting $1M+ proposals in front of their prospects and it was mainly because they (the reps) were used to putting out $50-100k proposals and felt $1M+ would scare clients away. What was interesting was they had a client panel that same day and some of the clients talked about their desire for the larger engagement. They wanted to “stop dating and get married.” I know prospects will react and say different things during the sales process compared to once they become a client, but it’s worth noting that most of the time clients are looking for recommendations versus reactions.

We all have competitors that we should pay attention to, I just think the one we should pay the most attention to is ourselves.

Good luck. Make it Happen!

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