Disrupting sales relationships is tricky. When you go into a sales presentation, if you recognize that it’s likely they’re going to have someone, and if you’ve got an arsenal of responses that you can come back with to demonstrate to them why you are obviously the better choice, then they’re going to be a lot more likely to at least give you a shot at that business, than if you don’t have those things in place.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
David: Hi, and welcome back in today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of disrupting sales relationships. Welcome back, Jay.
Jay: Hey, David. It’s a pleasure as always. I don’t want to do it. Don’t want to disrupt sales processes. I refuse. Don’t want to do it.
David: Okay. I refuse to participate. Yeah, it’s a tough one. The word disrupt is a tough word. But the reality of the situation is that when we’re approaching a new prospect, a new client, and that person already has a business relationship, perhaps with a competitor of ours — the only way that we’re even going to get a shot at that business is if we can, in some way, disrupt the existing sales relationship.
Now, I’m not talking about trying to drive a wedge between people. I’m not talking about anything nefarious. I’m just talking about the idea that to disrupt an established sales relationship, particularly one that is going reasonably well, requires you to be significantly better and different than the option that they’re already looking at.
Jay: Yeah, I agree. and I think that this starts way ahead of trying to disrupt any particular process that’s going on right now. We’ve talked about, in the past, do you know your competitors at all? Do you know their sales process? I mean, how would you disrupt anything if you didn’t know the process of what was going on?
David: Yeah, exactly. And if you think in terms of business relationships versus personal relationships, when you’re in high school and you first start dating, and the person that you like is already attracted to somebody else, like, oh, okay, well, how am I going to position myself as a better alternative, a better option, right?
So it requires strategy. It requires persistence. It requires some sort of advantage, right? Some sort of, what we would call in business, a competitive advantage.
And we need to think through those things, because it’s the same in a business relationship. If they’ve got a great business relationship, it’s going to be a lot harder.
In those situations, we have to determine whether or not it even makes sense for us to try to provide a better solution.
But here’s the thing, if we truly believe that our solution is better than whatever they’re currently receiving Then we kind of owe it to them to let them know that, don’t we?
Jay: Oh, yeah, I absolutely agree with that and we talked I think in the last podcast that we’re a company that loves it when you talk to our competitors. We love it when you’re in a sales process with somebody else, cause we know how unique we are in our presentation, in our initial consultations. We know.
And so the key for us to disrupting an existing sales process with somebody else is just, how do we get them to call us?
How do we introduce ourselves to them mid process? Because we know if they can find us or we can find them, our chances are pretty good.
David: Exactly. And so in your situation where you’re using online resources like pay per click and things like that, it’s a matter of getting some sort of messaging in front of them that has them questioning at that point, whether or not there is a better alternative out there for them.
And so the only people who are going to schedule a call with you are the ones who have determined that they are at least open to exploring that sort of relationship.
I think it’s interesting that a lot of times in business loyalty is often based on inertia, right? It’s just easier to stick with what I have rather than to try to find an alternative.
And in those situations, when you are able to get in front of someone who’s just doing business with a competitor of yours out of habit, it does become a lot easier to be able to create messaging that will intrigue them to the point where they’re willing to have a conversation.
Jay: Yeah, I love that line. Loyalty a lot of times is about inertia. I think about, in my own case, maybe a company that I’m using wasn’t perfect last time, and I probably would like to see if somebody else is out there.
But I know them. I know their number. I have a relationship with them. So suddenly I’m going to be a little bit less demanding, I guess.
And that means I’m compromising on what I want. And that’s not something that I should be doing.
David: Yeah, I completely relate to that. We’ve had situations with some of the CRMs that we’ve used over the years where they’re doing things that are just so incredibly frustrating. And the support is so terribly bad.
But the pain of having to move everything and switch everything over and all those dead links and all the things that go with it’s like, okay, well, I guess I’ll stick where I am.
So in this situation where you’re trying to attract a new prospect or client to you, you have to make sure that the rewards outweigh all the downside that comes with having to switch a relationship from the current one to the new one.
Jay: Yeah, exactly. And so, once again, you’ve got to identify what are the differences, then you have to identify how are you going to get in front of them to even talk about your differences? And then there’s the approach.
Because if your approach is to just bash the other guy. I’m sure you remember the Burger King and McDonald’s wars and Burger King, all their spots were just bashing McDonald’s.
And I’m like, I’m not going to stop going to McDonald’s cause you think that they’re bad. Of course you think they’re bad. You’re their competitor.
It always blows my mind in politics or anything like this. Why would I trust your competitor to give me a valid review about you? That the worst possible person to get a review from.
David: Exactly. And I think in some of those situations, what they did, rather than saying “we good, they bad,” was that they would look at a specific difference.
Like in the example you mentioned with McDonald’s and Burger King back in the day when the burger wars were going on. I believe Burger King’s positioning was all about flame broiling or was it flame broiling vs. frying?
Jay: Flame broiling. Yep. Mm hmm.
David: And so that’s the message that people can actually evaluate objectively.
Do I want it flame broiled or do I want it fried? Okay. Yeah. Flame broiled. That may sound better, right? So that was an approach that appealed to logic and fact, and it gave people an opportunity to make that decision.
So in that regard, it wasn’t just like, “Oh, our competitor is terrible. It’s really bad.” Although there were some commercials that came close to that. But I think. That’s a reasonable example of where they were able to define a clear difference that perhaps could change some minds.
Jay: Yeah, I remember Burger King was “have it your way.” And that was a whole spin on the fact that McDonald’s, you could not, custom order anything, right?
And so they were literally saying, we can treat you better, right? Identifying differences.
David: Yeah, that was a good one, too. Really back in the day when McDonald’s wouldn’t customize anything. I don’t know if they will today. I’m assuming they probably would.
Jay: They do. Yes,
David: But at that particular point in time, you couldn’t say, “Hey, can I get it without ketchup or whatever?” No, you just couldn’t.
And so when they came out with that campaign, it’s like, okay, that has definite appeal to people. Because again, it just makes sense. It resonates with them. “Have it your way” is just a great statement when you’re talking to a prospect.
“Hey, listen, have it your way. Let’s do it the way you want to do it, not the way that we’ve prepackaged it.”
It’s a great example. And so all of this really goes back to messaging, right? What is it that we’re saying about what we do, which is the subject of a previous podcast.
And when it comes to trying to disrupt or displace a current vendor or a current supplier, what is it that we’re going to have to say to make that happen?
Now, in a lot of cases, when you’re approaching someone new and they’ve already got somebody, they’re going to tell you, yeah, we already have someone we’re dealing with. Or we’re already happy with the person we’re dealing with.
And sometimes that’s true, and sometimes it’s not. But if you don’t have sort of a series of go-to responses about what to say to overcome that, you’re pretty much dead in the water.
Jay: Yeah, and it’s really difficult cards to play because if your whole thing is I’m just gonna bash the person that you’re working with? I’ve always felt like you’re bashing me, right?
It’s like in politics. If I question somebody on your side of the aisle, it’s like, I’m personally questioning you. And so I’m never going to change your mind by attacking you.
There has to be a different play there. That play could be talking about your services. So you’re strategically bashing the other person, but not by saying a name, you’re identifying a need that you can fulfill that is not being fulfilled right now.
But if you think you’re just going to attack the person they’re working with, I’ve always felt like that was an attack of the person who you’re trying to get their business from.
David: Yeah, I think that’s a really bad strategy. I think bashing your competition is just a really bad strategy. It works much better if you can think in terms of how can you outshine your competition?
How can you outperform your competition? And how can you convey that in a way that doesn’t bash them? It just points out the differences like we were talking about in those examples from Burger King.
It points out the differences and then they can decide which of those approaches they like better.
Because the whole idea of bashing competitors, most people I think don’t like that because it forces you to engage in a level of negativity. Now you’re saying negative things, you’re using negative words.
If you know what your competition does not do as well as you do, and they tell you that they’re using someone like that, there are ways that you can just ask them about their potential weak points without even identifying those as potential weak points.
If you know that your particular competitor is not particularly responsive in terms to getting back to people, then you can say to them, Oh, yes, you know, I’ve heard very good things about them. are they pretty good with the responsiveness? Are they pretty good with the things that are important to you?
And even if they’re not, they might say, Oh, yeah, they are. But in the back of their mind, they might be going, eh, could be better, could be better.
And then that way they’re doing the bashing mentally in their own heads and you’re not having to do it. I just don’t like the idea of bashing competitors. Just never did.
I think that it is a sign of desperation and I think it’s really unnecessary. Because when you’re bashing the competitor, it’s like you’re trying to put them down rather than trying to show them how you are above the fray.
Jay: Yeah, and I think anytime there’s feelings of negativity in a sales call type situation, that’s a losing battle.
I don’t think you should do this. Interestingly, as I think about it, our process in these circumstances, is to take them through the same questionnaire that we take everybody else.
In fact, we don’t really change our process. Because our process is to find out where they’re at and then ask them questions about what they’ve done.
And then find out if they know about the solutions and the problems. So if we’re doing that and the person they’re working with has never done that, because our competitors don’t do that, then we’ve already demonstrated the difference.
They can tell in a nanosecond, wait a minute, these guys are different.
The people I’m working with, they don’t even care. They just pushed past all of these things. So you can do it. And if you can achieve it, wow, can it be a game changer for sure.
David: No question. And I think a lot of that really comes down to the idea of making your offer so compelling that they will want to leave their current provider and come to you because of what you’re describing to them.
Now, of course, this is where what we’re saying about what we do, and then what we actually do have to be integrated, right? You can’t say you do this and then you deliver something that is completely different than that.
But if you’re consistent between what you’re saying and what you’re doing, and what you’re saying and doing is actually better than what they’re currently getting, they’re going to be a lot more likely to make that switch.
Jay: Yeah. And if you think about it, your competitor will help you make the sale. Cause if they’re bad, if they’re not good, and you’re leveling up, they’re going to be like, why wasn’t I with you in the first place, right?
And we get that a lot. So there is a way to do it, but very industry specific and unique. And, Dave, that’s why I think a call to you guys could really help them walk through the process. How do they find out more?
David: Yeah, we’d love to have that conversation Just go to TopSecrets.com/call, schedule a call with myself or my team The reality of the situation is that most of the people that you interact with, particularly the type of clients you actually want to have, probably already have a provider of the solution you provide. Right?
Because if they don’t, then do they even need it? Are they early stages? Why don’t they? Or they’ve at least had some experience with a competitor.
So when you go into a sales presentation or even a prospecting session with somebody to try to find out if they are a potential client of yours, if you recognize that it’s likely they’re going to have someone, and if you’ve got an arsenal of responses that you can come back with to demonstrate to them why you are obviously the better choice, then they’re going to be a lot more likely to at least give you a shot at that business, than if you don’t have those things in place.
So once again, if you want to go to TopSecrets.com/call, we’d love to have that conversation with you.
Jay: Absolutely. And I know it’ll be worth it.
David: Thank you so much, Jay.
Ready to Start Disrupting Some Existing Sales Relationships?
If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow:
- Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help.
- Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here.
- Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry.
- Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here.
- Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here.