“does anybody want to commit cost and effort to winning a sale without having covered all the bases?”
Where’s the competition?
The answer to this question might not be as simple as we’d like to think. Because competition can sometimes come from where we least expect it.
When we’re selling our SEO skills we might think the client’s only looking at other SEO businesses. BUT, maybe the client isn’t really looking for SEO. Maybe he’s looking for traffic. If we just compete on SEO there’s a danger we could be blind sided by Affilate Marketing. If our competitors persuade the client Affilate Marketing is the answer we’re out of the game.
So we need to be aware of other answers to the client’s needs and position our offer against those, not just the bits we want to understand.
Once we’ve figured out all the potential solutions we need to get our story straight. We can’t do that until we understand what the competition will be saying.
If we’ve beaten them in recent competition we need to focus the conversation on why ABC Corp chose us. If we’ve lost recently then we need to focus the discussion on how that decision went wrong.
Most of all we need to demonstrate expertise. Clients are more comfortable buying skills, committment to quality and results.
When we understand the competition’s arguments, can explain them to the client and point out where they fall down, we’re showing our expertise.
Perhaps the strongest argument in selling is acknowledging the competition’s strengths whilst quietly referencing its weaknesses. This doesn’t need to be aggressive.
“Yes, they would say that, with good cause, because?” is a great way of opening the conversation about “but have they told you about this?”
Qualification is all about making a bet on whether we can win. Selling is all about making sure we win.
In the qualification process we don’t just ask questions. We figure where our angle is and how to present it in the best possible light.
Then we can commit to the sale knowing we’ve done a better job then the competition.
Of course this doesn’t always work 
but does anybody want to commit cost and effort to winning a sale without having covered all the bases?
Check out these short articles to find out more about sales qualification, and how to do it.
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