Rooted in Reality | The Itch to Pitch | Heads up vs. Heads Down

🌳 Rooting Your Compete Program in Reality 🌳

Salesforce VP of Competitive Intelligence Dan Hamilton has lived in the world of compete for more than a decade. 

When we asked him to share the most common trait among all successful compete programs, his answer was:

They are rooted in reality.

For most, that reality is found on the ground alongside your sales reps. 

Here are three reasons why partnering with them is key to success.

💵 Prove the ROI of your compete program

• Benchmark the deals you supported versus those you didn’t to measure the impact you’ve had on win rates, close rates, and revenue. 

🏆 Unlock the nuances that help you better differentiate 

• Differentiation is incredibly nuanced, and you’ll never learn the nuance unless you’re partnering with your sales team

✅ Boost your credibility with customer anecdotes

• Your observations from the reality on the ground — especially with prospects and customers — help strengthen your overall narrative and validate your POV. 

Check out the full session with Dan and Klue’s Jason Oakley to dive into these three takeaways and much more. 

🙅‍♀️ Resist the Itch to Pitch 🙅‍♀️

As Dan Hamilton said in his Winner’s Circle session, proper differentiation is incredibly nuanced. 

And since no one would advise getting into a feature-function stand-off, it’s important for your sales reps to know the right tactics to effectively differentiate at all points in the sales cycle.

So we brought together three of my most-excellent colleagues, Jody Geiger, Leigh Quinlan, and Erin Neal to share how they competitively differentiate. 

🙋‍♀️ Ask for consent

• Ask your prospect if you can directly call out some of the competitive differentiators between you and your competitor in a demo, sales call etc. 
• Let them give you the green light to compare and contrast first; if they say no, just focus on the strengths of your product 

🤷‍♀️ Don’t pretend like other competitors don’t exist 

• If a prospect mentions your competitor, address their statement directly
• If it’s something the competitor does better, acknowledge it; if it’s a lie, correct the record. 

🙅‍♀️ Resist the itch to pitch 

• Guide your prospect toward ranking their main problems before you start pitching
• If you pitch before you even know how your product can help, you risk losing credibility right off the hop. 

I’m a little biased, but this was my favourite session of the day. These three sellers are so damn good at their job — it’s a pleasure getting to work with them. 

👬 Coffee & Compete Community Corner 👭

Newsletter >