Don't Forget About the Competition

Sales is about helping people. I believe that 100%. It's about solving problems for people. This truth is the essence of what it means to me to be a consumer psychologist--to help people find viable solutions to their market problems. There is, however, one other element to selling that we don't like to think about. We prefer to think of the only players in the game as us and the customers. When we think in this way, we are forgetting one important fact: we aren't the only doctors on the block.

Ours is not the only practice. The customer's metaphorical Yellow Pages is flooded with alternatives. In reality, the game consists of us, our customers, and our competition. It's us--the problem-solvers, our patients, and a whole host of other doctors who claim to be able to solve our patients' problems better than we can. We are not the only ones asking, "how does that make you buy?"

So, how should we view the competition? Aren't they trying to help the customer in the same way that we are? Aren't they problem-solvers too? Aren't they more like colleagues than competition? Well, no. The key thing to remember is that the competition has the same intention as we do. They want to help. To think of the competition in any other way--as being devious and under-handed for example--is cynicism and arrogance on our part. We should assume that our competition has the same level of concern for our customers. The difference is not in the intention but rather in the quality of the proposed solutions. Our solution is better for our customers than that of our competitors. If we don't believe that with every fiber of our being, then we shouldn't be selling what we are selling. Our job is to convince our customers of what we know to be true--that, while all of our competitors certainly are well-meaning, our offering will solve their problems better than the alternatives.

But let's not forget about the competition. Let's never make the mistake of assuming we have a monopoly on our customers' attention. Our competitors are very real and they believe in their solutions just as much as we believe in ours. If our competitors provide a better solution, we can no longer help our customers. We've got to stay on our toes. Not so that we can stay ahead of the competition--but so that we can make sure that our customers are being taken care of.