Here’s Two Ways Competitors are Actually Impacting your Sales Efficiency

Adam McQueen

This article is part of our By the Numbers series, where we share findings from our data so that you can compete better. Today we’re analyzing results from our latest report surveying 300+ revenue leaders. Subscribe to Coffee & Compete on LinkedIn to read more data-driven articles like this.

Do more with less. Find efficiencies. Improve productivity.

All clichés we’ve heard one too many times in Zoom meetings…

But they’ve never felt more real for revenue leaders in 2023.

Long gone are the days of ‘growth-at-all-costs’ coming top-down from the board.

Efficiency is the name of the game.

But here’s the issue.

84% of revenue leaders said that losing winnable deals to the competition is hurting their sales efficiency.

We’ve got the data behind why it’s happening, and what you can do about it.

1. ‘Closed Lost’ to competitors is eating up too much of reps’ time

Of the 300+ revenue leaders Klue spoke with, losses to competitors were the deals that took up the second largest portion of their reps’ time.

That is hours of time, money, and resources that bring zero back in return.

Not a winning recipe for revenue teams prioritizing efficiency.

Here’s why sellers spend too much time on competitive losses, and how you can fix it.

Deal cycles lengthen when you can’t ‘quick dismiss’ competitors

The quicker your reps can kick competitors out of a deal, the clearer the path towards closing.

But once a competitor gets their hooks in?

The loooonnngggerrr the deal stretches. The less certainty you have of winning.

Inefficient.

Solve this by setting your sellers up with ‘quick dismisses’ they can use the next time a competitor pops up.

Below is the ‘Quick Dismiss’ battlecard framework you can use from our latest toolkit with 30 Minutes to President’s Club, including the talk tracks your reps should follow:

• Acknowledge and praise competitor
• State their limitations
• Highlight your value

(Psst, if you’re looking for more ways to set your reps up to sell more efficiently against the competition, grab our toolkit with 30 Minutes to President’s Club on nailing trap-setting questions and the battlecard frameworks to use in different competitive situations.)

Reps spend too much time researching competitors themselves

A focused rep is a winning rep.

But right now, researching competitors is a big distraction.

In fact, 41% of sellers said that they spend too much time researching competitors, according to Salesforce’s State of Sales Report.

Two problems:

• Researching competitors diverts reps from activities that will actually help them close
• Manual research can lead to incorrect information and surface-level insights

At a minimum, your reps need a solid understanding of your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, your value wedges, and battlecards that help them articulate your differentiated value.

Free up your seller’s time by providing these three things that will help them win a deal, instead of leaving them to scroll through pricing pages and G2 reviews for hours on end.

2. Losses to competitors crush seller morale

Losing a deal is disheartening.

But losing a deal when the buyer secures budget, deems the pain you solve worth solving, assesses all of their options in the market…

… and then goes with your competitor?

Those sting.

And revenue leaders agree:

So, what can you do to minimize those losses and maintain your reps’ morale?

Prioritize the biggest threats to active pipeline

Squeeze the most out of your pipeline by prioritizing your focus and support on competitors that are your biggest revenue threats in deals.

Don’t just go off of hunches.

Or who the loudest seller is most vocal about.

Use data to prioritize. Here’s how to map active threats to pipeline using three CRM data points:

• Presence. How many open deals is a competitor in?
• Win rate. How often do we beat this competitor?
• Open pipeline. How much total money is on the line?

In the example above, Competitor G is in the most open deals, we have the lowest win rate against them, and the total pipeline at risk is $14 million…

That’s the competitor you need to make sure your reps are in the best position to sell against.

And if your business is competing in a marketplace with 80+ vendors, you need this data to understand who is posing the biggest threats to revenue.

Increase your reps’ Competitive Confidence

Nothing is more deflating than walking into a call where you know a competitor is already present, and you don’t have a strategy to differentiate against them.

A game plan is needed.

Below is a discovery call framework you can use to help your reps navigate their next competitive deal.

1. Set the tone: Tee up the agenda, create space for conversation, consultative approach, low pressure.
2. Open Question: Ask an open-ended impact question to start the discussion. Allow the buyer to go wherever they choose and get permission to ask a targeted question.
3. Targeted Question: Ask targeted impact questions to bring awareness to things they may not be thinking about. Narrow your buyer’s focus to something specific that you’d like to talk about.
4. Summarize and Confirm: Validate that you heard what they said and confirm that this is what they meant. Summarize and confirm the business problem explored so far. Can also confirm that Klue can do something they are asking for.
5. Frame the Pain: Identify and articulate the pain they are facing and why it is a problem they should pay attention to. Become an advisor…’people like you face things like this’.
6. Differentiate: Choose an element of what your competitor does and pre-position against it. Lay a landmine for how we do it better.

If you made it this far…

You realize that every loss to a competitor that you should have won is going to impact your efficiency.

But setting your sellers up for success is easier said than done.

That’s why we’ve built our new toolkit with the best sellers out there, 30 Minutes to President’s Club.

The trap questions you need to ask, how to land them, and the battlecard frameworks that will help your sellers navigate every competitive situation.

Grab the toolkit below, and close the year by closing those winnable deals over the competition.

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