1. Competition, how to deal with this subject
Competition is good! We all benefit from competition. Who does not remember the price of Mobile calls
10 years back? What is the price now? When producers compete, consumers benefit, that’s a reality.
Can we avoid competition? The answer is a definite No .Your customers WILL compare your product
with your competition, so be ready and tackle the subject. Let your customer listen to why you MAY BE
more expensive and why. If you do a good job to justify the additional investment then the customer
will not shop around.
Also be ready for the competition from the beginning, if you learn about your competition at the end it
is difficult to recover. One great technique is to build a competitive profile for your major leading ones.
In this profile you should rate your competitors on the following factors and give your competitor a
grade of 1-10 where “10” is Excellent Performer, “5” is Average Performer and “1” is Extremely Weak
Performer:
Competition factor Comp. Weight Customer view Combined weight
- Price 8 25% 2
- Product Specification 5 5% .25
- Product Quality 7 10% .7
- Product Range 3 5% .15
- Product Popularity 4 10% .4
- After Sales Service 5 15% .75
- Market Share 5 8% .4
- Payment Terms 9 5% .45
- Delivery Terms 9 10% .9
- Industry Analysts View 3 7% .21
Next, get your customer to give weight to these factors in percentage. He will try to play the Price card
and tell you the most important thing is the price…. IT IS NOT! Customers care about total cost of
ownership; they do not want their business disrupted because the machine failed again, or the filter is
clogged again, so “do not take No for an answer” and write down the percentage next to every factor.
Lastly multiply the percentage BY the competitor’s weight that you have given to these factors. To come
up with the areas of competition that you need to focus on and re-arrange the table to have the
combined view as the significant factor upon which you will devise your competition strategy.
A lot of information come out of this exercise, it is really valuable to give time and effort to this kind of
activity and TRUST ME ..These things work! You will not have to burn your price and kill your margins
after that.

2. Now when you talk to your customer, use statements such as :
• “We are not afraid from our competition , we are prepared to deal with them”
– It shows that you know there are other products in the market, although not necessarily
equal to your product…… shows confidence).
• “I am glad you are interested to provide your department with XXX (benefit) . I am ready to help
you compare and contrast the differences between us and our leading competition, show you
why are we superior especially in your situation and why we may be a bit more expensive !!”
• “Price will never be the issue”
These are statements that will make you sound confident and when your customer gives you info about
your competitor and, hopefully you have done your competition analysis homework, you will hit the
right buttons and win the business.
All this and more is the subject of my Sales Education program that I have developed and makes a lot of
sense in a one-on-one session, especially what comes after that …Good luck and good selling.
Ashraf Osman