answer the question and fumbled and stammered and hemmed and hawed.

A sales professional must be able to articulate uniqueness and what they do in a special way.

If your product or service is not unique on the surface, you need to dig deeper and find a way to articulate how your VALUE to your clients is unique, and then specifically show how. We’ll get to that.

Go head to head with 2 predators at once

Let’s look at competition source numbers two and three: Do It Themselves and Do Nothing.

Since these are the two elephants in the room when you go out on appointments, it’s again silly (and costly) not to prepare to go head-to-head with these two very real forms of competition.

When I do sales seminars, one of the exercises revolves around these two specific options.

I have people take a sheet of paper and divide it into three columns.

The first column is labeled “Use us.” The second column is labeled “DIY.” The third column is labeled “Do nothing.”

And I then ask salespeople to specify between 7 and 10 items under each column.

Even if you never show your version of this document to a client, it’s a great cheat sheet for YOU to understand and prepare where your product or service fits int

How well do you know your competition?
I have talked with sales professionals who couldn’t even make a list of their competitors. There is no doubt that you should be a stone cold, flat out expert on the competition in several aspects:
1.Their strengths
2.Their liabilities (all competitors have them)
3.How they are structured
4.Their product lines, service offerings, packages, track record, pricing, etc.

All that being said we need to talk about my definition of competition:

Any person, place, condition or circumstance that competes with the possibility of you making the sale.

Under this definition, the competition has a much broader scope. It could be any (or all) of the following:

You. What? How can you be your own competition? Well easy… you can be the person who competes with the possibility of making the sale in any number of ways. It may be an unclear message, poor communication skills, lack of preparation, lack of differentiation etc. But rest easy there, partner. The whole point of Sales Science™ is to help eliminate anything that you are doing to compete with yourself for the sale – to help you stop shooting yourself in the foot. (Now you know why your foot was always hurting).

Do It Themselves. Have you noticed how many prospects think they can “do it themselves”? Sure they can. And it’s a lot more appealing than working with you. At first glance, it’s FREE. It’s worked fine in the past. There’s no risk. And it could be a real money-saver – heck, maybe they can start doing it themselves all the time!

Do Nothing. Ah, this is VERY popular. Stephen Covey, in discussing time management, breaks out one of those fancy 4-quadrant diagrams that all highly-paid consultants and authors use in their books. He talks about the Urgent vs. the Important. His first quadrant is Urgent AND Important. These are things a restaurant owner will need to buy before the Health Inspector visits next week. This is also a relatively easy sale. Covey’s second quadrant is Important but NOT Urgent. This is how many of your prospects will initially view your product or service. And unless you prove otherwise, they’re right

The Actual Competition. These are other providers of the same or similar products and services. Although it is important to understand a lot about how you stack up, it is more likely you’ll be up against one of the previous three forms of competition.

So how can you beat all this competition? There are several things I would like you to think about to help you move to the top of the food chain – to move away from being the grazing antelope and become more like the strong lion.

First – what makes you unique? Or do you have the same old blah-blah stuff? For example, how do you answer the following question?

“What do you do?”

Most salespeople, unfortunately, come up with this:

“I am in sales for XYZ company.”

Zzzzzzzzzzzz... Do you hear me dozing off? Do you see me getting a case of MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over)?

You must have a way of articulating what you do that is more interesting and compelling!

There are three areas that should be considered and a statement prepared for when they happen:

1.How you explain what you do to someone you meet by chance (they could be a prospect). This is what we call the unexpected speech – but by gosh, it happens all the time. So you should expect it! 2.The phone explanation. How do you explain what you do over the phone? 3.The in-person sales appointment.

So how would you explain what you do to someone you have just met? “I am in sales for XYZ .” NO! The goal is not to bore them; it’s to intrigue them and catch their attention.

I sell copiers

Let’s say you sell copiers. You could say “I sell copiers.” Yawn!

Here is another approach. “I am an expert on reproduction in the office.” That will get you a look which can be described as “What the heck did you just say????”

You as the sales professional then say, “I consult with clients and show them how to get the very most bang-for-the-buck from their office copiers.” STOP.

Hopefully they will then say, “How do you do that?” See, now a conversation has started.

Have you mentioned that you sell Ricoh or Minolta or Brand X? Nope. (Remember, nobody cares about YOU). You have done something more important. You have gotten their attention. Now we’re not saying you should follow a script. (Frankly, we’d shoot ourselves first.) What we are saying is that you need to develop a short, catchy message that you can deliver at the “drop of a hat” that gets response.

There are a ton of you... or not

I met a man at a function and I asked him what he did and he said “I own a delivery service and we deliver packages across town.” I said, “Oh that’s interesting. There are a ton of those. How are you different?” He looked like a deer caught in my headlights and said “What do you mean?” I said “What makes you unique?” He could not answer the question and fumbled and stammered and hemmed and hawed.

A sales professional must be able to articulate uniqueness and what they do in a special way.

If your product or service is not unique on the surface, you need to dig deeper and find a way to articulate how your VALUE to your clients is unique, and then specifically show how. We’ll get to that.

Go head to head with 2 predators at once

Let’s look at competition source numbers two and three: Do It Themselves and Do Nothing.

Since these are the two elephants in the room when you go out on appointments, it’s again silly (and costly) not to prepare to go head-to-head with these two very real forms of competition.

When I do sales seminars, one of the exercises revolves around these two specific options.

I have people take a sheet of paper and divide it into three columns.

The first column is labeled “Use us.” The second column is labeled “DIY.” The third column is labeled “Do nothing.”

And I then ask salespeople to specify between 7 and 10 items under each column.

Even if you never show your version of this document to a client, it’s a great cheat sheet for YOU to understand and prepare where your product or service fits into

).

Do It Themselves. Have you noticed how many prospects think they can “do it themselves”? Sure they can. And it’s a lot more appealing than working with you. At first glance, it’s FREE. It’s worked fine in the past. There’s no risk. And it could be a real money-saver – heck, maybe they can start doing it themselves all the time!

Do Nothing. Ah, this is VERY popular. Stephen Covey, in discussing time management, breaks out one of those fancy 4-quadrant diagrams that all highly-paid consultants and authors use in their books. He talks about the Urgent vs. the Important. His first quadrant is Urgent AND Important. These are things a restaurant owner will need to buy before the Health Inspector visits next week. This is also a relatively easy sale. Covey’s second quadrant is Important but NOT Urgent. This is how many of your prospects will initially view your product or service. And unless you prove otherwise, they’re right

The Actual Competition. These are other providers of the same or similar products and services. Although it is important to understand a lot about how you stack up, it is more likely you’ll be up against one of the previous three forms of competition.

So how can you beat all this competition? There are several things I would like you to think about to help you move to the top of the food chain – to move away from being the grazing antelope and become more like the strong lion.

First – what makes you unique? Or do you have the same old blah-blah stuff? For example, how do you answer the following question?

“What do you do?”

Most salespeople, unfortunately, come up with this:

“I am in sales for XYZ company.”

Zzzzzzzzzzzz... Do you hear me dozing off? Do you see me getting a case of MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over)?

You must have a way of articulating what you do that is more interesting and compelling!

There are three areas that should be considered and a statement prepared for when they happen:

1.How you explain what you do to someone you meet by chance (they could be a prospect). This is what we call the unexpected speech – but by gosh, it happens all the time. So you should expect it! 2.The phone explanation. How do you explain what you do over the phone? 3.The in-person sales appointment.

So how would you explain what you do to someone you have just met? “I am in sales for XYZ .” NO! The goal is not to bore them; it’s to intrigue them and catch their attention.

I sell copiers

Let’s say you sell copiers. You could say “I sell copiers.” Yawn!

Here is another approach. “I am an expert on reproduction in the office.” That will get you a look which can be described as “What the heck did you just say????”

You as the sales professional then say, “I consult with clients and show them how to get the very most bang-for-the-buck from their office copiers.” STOP.

Hopefully they will then say, “How do you do that?” See, now a conversation has started.

Have you mentioned that you sell Ricoh or Minolta or Brand X? Nope. (Remember, nobody cares about YOU). You have done something more important. You have gotten their attention. Now we’re not saying you should follow a script. (Frankly, we’d shoot ourselves first.) What we are saying is that you need to develop a short, catchy message that you can deliver at the “drop of a hat” that gets response.

There are a ton of you... or not

I met a man at a function and I asked him what he did and he said “I own a delivery service and we deliver packages across town.” I said, “Oh that’s interesting. There are a ton of those. How are you different?” He looked like a deer caught in my headlights and said “What do you mean?” I said “What makes you unique?” He could not answer the question and fumbled and stammered and hemmed and hawed.

A sales professional must be able to articulate uniqueness and what they do in a special way.

If your product or service is not unique on the surface, you need to dig deeper and find a way to articulate how your VALUE to your clients is unique, and then specifically show how. We’ll get to that.

Go head to head with 2 predators at once

Let’s look at competition source numbers two and three: Do It Themselves and Do Nothing.

Since these are the two elephants in the room when you go out on appointments, it’s again silly (and costly) not to prepare to go head-to-head with these two very real forms of competition.

When I do sales seminars, one of the exercises revolves around these two specific options.

I have people take a sheet of paper and divide it into three columns.

The first column is labeled “Use us.” The second column is labeled “DIY.” The third column is labeled “Do nothing.”

And I then ask salespeople to specify between 7 and 10 items under each column.

Even if you never show your version of this document to a client, it’s a great cheat sheet for YOU to understand and prepare where your product or service fits int

everal things I would like you to think about to help you move to the top of the food chain – to move away from being the grazing antelope and become more like the strong lion.

First – what makes you unique? Or do you have the same old blah-blah stuff? For example, how do you answer the following question?

“What do you do?”

Most salespeople, unfortunately, come up with this:

“I am in sales for XYZ company.”

Zzzzzzzzzzzz... Do you hear me dozing off? Do you see me getting a case of MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over)?

You must have a way of articulating what you do that is more interesting and compelling!

There are three areas that should be considered and a statement prepared for when they happen:

1.How you explain what you do to someone you meet by chance (they could be a prospect). This is what we call the unexpected speech – but by gosh, it happens all the time. So you should expect it! 2.The phone explanation. How do you explain what you do over the phone? 3.The in-person sales appointment.

So how would you explain what you do to someone you have just met? “I am in sales for XYZ .” NO! The goal is not to bore them; it’s to intrigue them and catch their attention.

I sell copiers

Let’s say you sell copiers. You could say “I sell copiers.” Yawn!

Here is another approach. “I am an expert on reproduction in the office.” That will get you a look which can be described as “What the heck did you just say????”

You as the sales professional then say, “I consult with clients and show them how to get the very most bang-for-the-buck from their office copiers.” STOP.

Hopefully they will then say, “How do you do that?” See, now a conversation has started.

Have you mentioned that you sell Ricoh or Minolta or Brand X? Nope. (Remember, nobody cares about YOU). You have done something more important. You have gotten their attention. Now we’re not saying you should follow a script. (Frankly, we’d shoot ourselves first.) What we are saying is that you need to develop a short, catchy message that you can deliver at the “drop of a hat” that gets response.

There are a ton of you... or not

I met a man at a function and I asked him what he did and he said “I own a delivery service and we deliver packages across town.” I said, “Oh that’s interesting. There are a ton of those. How are you different?” He looked like a deer caught in my headlights and said “What do you mean?” I said “What makes you unique?” He could not answer the question and fumbled and stammered and hemmed and hawed.

A sales professional must be able to articulate uniqueness and what they do in a special way.

If your product or service is not unique on the surface, you need to dig deeper and find a way to articulate how your VALUE to your clients is unique, and then specifically show how. We’ll get to that.

Go head to head with 2 predators at once

Let’s look at competition source numbers two and three: Do It Themselves and Do Nothing.

Since these are the two elephants in the room when you go out on appointments, it’s again silly (and costly) not to prepare to go head-to-head with these two very real forms of competition.

When I do sales seminars, one of the exercises revolves around these two specific options.

I have people take a sheet of paper and divide it into three columns.

The first column is labeled “Use us.” The second column is labeled “DIY.” The third column is labeled “Do nothing.”

And I then ask salespeople to specify between 7 and 10 items under each column.

Even if you never show your version of this document to a client, it’s a great cheat sheet for YOU to understand and prepare where your product or service fits int

ay you sell copiers. You could say “I sell copiers.” Yawn!

Here is another approach. “I am an expert on reproduction in the office.” That will get you a look which can be described as “What the heck did you just say????”

You as the sales professional then say, “I consult with clients and show them how to get the very most bang-for-the-buck from their office copiers.” STOP.

Hopefully they will then say, “How do you do that?” See, now a conversation has started.

Have you mentioned that you sell Ricoh or Minolta or Brand X? Nope. (Remember, nobody cares about YOU). You have done something more important. You have gotten their attention. Now we’re not saying you should follow a script. (Frankly, we’d shoot ourselves first.) What we are saying is that you need to develop a short, catchy message that you can deliver at the “drop of a hat” that gets response.

There are a ton of you... or not

I met a man at a function and I asked him what he did and he said “I own a delivery service and we deliver packages across town.” I said, “Oh that’s interesting. There are a ton of those. How are you different?” He looked like a deer caught in my headlights and said “What do you mean?” I said “What makes you unique?” He could not answer the question and fumbled and stammered and hemmed and hawed.

A sales professional must be able to articulate uniqueness and what they do in a special way.

If your product or service is not unique on the surface, you need to dig deeper and find a way to articulate how your VALUE to your clients is unique, and then specifically show how. We’ll get to that.

Go head to head with 2 predators at once

Let’s look at competition source numbers two and three: Do It Themselves and Do Nothing.

Since these are the two elephants in the room when you go out on appointments, it’s again silly (and costly) not to prepare to go head-to-head with these two very real forms of competition.

When I do sales seminars, one of the exercises revolves around these two specific options.

I have people take a sheet of paper and divide it into three columns.

The first column is labeled “Use us.” The second column is labeled “DIY.” The third column is labeled “Do nothing.”

And I then ask salespeople to specify between 7 and 10 items under each column.

Even if you never show your version of this document to a client, it’s a great cheat sheet for YOU to understand and prepare where your product or service fits int

answer the question and fumbled and stammered and hemmed and hawed.

A sales professional must be able to articulate uniqueness and what they do in a special way.

If your product or service is not unique on the surface, you need to dig deeper and find a way to articulate how your VALUE to your clients is unique, and then specifically show how. We’ll get to that.

Go head to head with 2 predators at once

Let’s look at competition source numbers two and three: Do It Themselves and Do Nothing.

Since these are the two elephants in the room when you go out on appointments, it’s again silly (and costly) not to prepare to go head-to-head with these two very real forms of competition.

When I do sales seminars, one of the exercises revolves around these two specific options.

I have people take a sheet of paper and divide it into three columns.

The first column is labeled “Use us.” The second column is labeled “DIY.” The third column is labeled “Do nothing.”

And I then ask salespeople to specify between 7 and 10 items under each column.

Even if you never show your version of this document to a client, it’s a great cheat sheet for YOU to understand and prepare where your product or service fits into the landscape of your prospect’s business, their priorities, and the type of choices they’re really making when they make a decision to buy from you, do it themselves, or do nothing at all.

In other words, you understand the environment into which you’re selling.

And the more prepared you are, the better results you can expect at every phase of your sales activities.

In fact, that’s another standard formula of mine

3P = R(SA)

Got that? Preparation and thinking about the Priorities of your Prospect leads to Results from your Sales Activities! Try it you will never sell the same again.