Overcoming your leading competitor - small-business

Before you read any advance in this article, I'd like you to take a jiffy and write down who your largest antagonism is.

OK, got it?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and tell you that no affair what band you wrote down, you're wrong. Here's what I'll tell you; no be of importance what commerce you're in, no be important how long you've been selling, the chief battle you face in promotion is the condition quo. The Class Quo; anything it is your chance is doing now - that's the key challenge you have to overcome in selling. Accept this complete truth and you can develop into much more helpful in your advertising efforts.

To exceedingly appreciate why the Eminence Quo is such a arduous competitor it helps to explore a bit about the psychology of decision-making. According to psychologist and creator Robert Cialdini "Once we have made a amount or taken a stand, we will come upon individual and interpersonal pressures to perform consistently with that commitment. Those pressures will cause us to act in response in ways that align our ahead decision. "

Let's look at how this applies in selling. Receiving a dig to alteration what they are at this time doing - even if you have a genuinely change for the better blend - is difficult. Our actual corollary is to try to show how we what can offer is better, how we can save them money, how we can save them time, and so on. Yet, oftentimes the more we try to back up our presentation with facts and evidence, the more brilliantly our hope will seek to adjust and cut back on what they're previously doing. Admitting that they made a bad (or less than optimal) choice, would build some real domestic dissonance. The louder that difference of opinion the better the examination for excuse and constancy becomes. This is chiefly true if the choice made is a communal one; the more associates that know about the decision, the more the character who made it will seek evenness and resist changing.

For example, consider you are advertising a software answer that has been proven to save companies time and money - and you can authenticate it. You call on the head of IT at a key prospect. He tells you that he has urban his own solution, which, according to him "does the same thing that your creation does. " As you show him the proprietary facial appearance of your program, he even admits that yes, it can do equipment his can't, and yes, it would save time and money, and yes, the CEO would especially like the approach to in sequence it would provide. Yet, he won't proceed with the sale. Why? Well, what you may not know is that each one in the business knows that the IT Chief (your prospect) has been championing how great his own classification is, and that his line during the ballet company is "Why buy when we can conceive this arrangement ourselves. "

Even despite the fact that he knows rationally that you may have a advance solution, he will do the whole thing he can to defend his ahead decision; to do or else would cause great inner difference of opinion and discomfort.

So, then, how do you deal with this situation?

1. Recognize that your job in promotion is to appreciate what citizens do - and to work with them to help them do belongings better.

2. Don't try to sell by performance that your creation or advantage is change for the better than the competitors' (or doesn't matter what else they might be doing).

Wait - that sounds inconsistent, you say. First you say that I be supposed to help him do equipment better, but I shouldn't show them why my artifact is better?

The apparent inconsistency resolves itself when you confiscate manually from demanding to "sell your product" and shift your focus to accepting what colonize do, why they do clothes that way, and what they're hopeful to accomplish in the future. Your questions be supposed to be exactly paying attention on the expectation - not on you.

The best way to bring these ostensible contradictory goals into alignment is to show your dig how you can ENHANCE what they are previously doing. By screening how you can enhance, in essence what you are aphorism is "Hey, you've got a touch that's functioning here, and I'm not going to upset your apple cart. My goal is to help you take what you've previously got, and help you make it even better. "

By captivating the approximate to enhance you accomplish two critical things. First, you are plateful the chance avow their sense of constancy which will make you an ally. Second, by initial with this approach, you may make a small sale at the start but you now have the door open to better sales and the establishment of a long-term relationship.

As Cialdini sums up "For the salesperson, the line of attack is to achieve a large asset by initial with a small one. About any small sale will do, as the drive of that small transaction is not profit. It is commitment. Advance purchases, even much bigger ones, are anticipated to flow from the commitment. "

Copyright 2005 Lexien Management Consultants, Inc

Mark Dembo; President, Lexien Management Consultants (http://www. lexien. com) Mark has over 20 years of sales, sale management, and affair change experience, alert on humanizing the accomplishment of those and organizations. Lexien Management Consultants provides sales training, consulting, and schooling army to organizations and folks who are motivated to grow their businesses. Each month, Lexien publishes the Sales Hit Newsletter.